Meet Colter.

This would be my handsome man.
At the moment, he is home with his family in New Mexico, while I am 400 miles away at ASU for school, majoring in English. It's been a really complicated summer, because although we've talked every single day that we've been together, actually SEEING each other has been a little hectic with both of us traveling and preparing for our new lives to start.

When we are together, he's always loved taking me on walks and being a huge brat anytime he had the chance. In some ways, we are so completely opposite it's ridiculous, and he drives me crazy as often as he can. But in the end there's nothing that makes me happy more than knowing he is my absolute best friend and I can go to him about anything, even if sometimes I feel really really dumb for whatever I did.

On October 12th he and I will be officially going our separate ways, and although we are already trying to maintain a long distance relationship, it will definitely not be the same when I don't get to text, call or Skype him everyday. That part is probably the only sad part about it though.. Because now I get to be a girl happily in wait of an LDS missionary!

I've been picking up on ideas from other MG's of what to do while I wait, and I am so excited to start my countdown calendar and to send him packages and learn and do so many things to help myself grow while he's out saving the world.

He has to leave home so other people can have their families for eternity... so when he comes home we can have ours :)

News:

So I sort of have an announcement.
I am now preparing to wait for a missionary.

It feels really weird to be saying this, seeing as four months ago I did not see myself in this situation at all. However, God had other plans for me and now here I am. Sitting here typing about my soon-to-be missionary, wearing the promise ring he gave me three weeks ago.

We started dating June 3rd. We'd known each other for about a year, but we never really talked much because he was dating a girl I knew from another school. But... they had broken up last winter and we ran into each other at summer institute, and started talking.
It didn't take long for our rendezvous to begin, by the third week of class we considered ourselves a "couple" and so did everyone around us.

We've known from the beginning that our fun would have to end with the summer, because the night of our first date he opened his mission call to find out he was leaving October 12th for Panama City, Panama! However, our love has grown quickly and I have decided once and for all that I am willing to wait for him to come home from his mission, so we can marry each other for eternity in the temple in 2013.

I know I'm a huge dork for saying this but I am so friggin PUMPED to be a Missionary's Girlfriend! I have been reading blog after blog of girls who are currently waiting for their missionary boyfriends and all the different ways they are making the longest 2 years of their lives a fun experience.... And have decided to start my own. I figure this is also the best way to journal my life for the next two years, something to keep me sane when the days are long.

I will now use this time to tell a little bit about my boy and all the fun we have had and are having!

It's only the beginning.

After 1,374 days I finally get to say that I am graduated from high school and so happy! I have made great friends that I will keep forever and learned lessons I could never have learned without all the amazing people in my life.

The girls:
RyAnne, Meleah, Alyssa, Krista :)
The woman who has inspired me for the last 18 years.
Graduation was very wet, it poured the entire time, but still fantastic. We didn't stick around for hugs or pictures at the end, but headed straight for the Project Grad for the fun til 3 :)
We had a combined graduation party for me and my cousin Cameron, who graduated from Aztec, and it turned out to be an awesome idea! We had it at my Grandpa's place, so there were people eating and playing frisbee and boating out on the pond and S'more roasting and TONS of food being eaten all night!

I'm so glad I got to have so much of my family together all at once and I thank everyone for coming and everyone for their amazing support!

I'm so excited that the end of high school is just the beginning. Now is where the adventures start. I will be attending Arizona State University this fall as a freshman to major in English, and I can't wait to see what Tempe holds for me.