It's March. I'm getting Married in March. HOLY CRAP!

Dear Blog,

Were you sarting to think I had forgotten about you? Bad news--- I kinda had.

Well here it is, March 1st. Big month.

So much has changed since back in the day when I wrote. I am now the semi-proud owner of a 6 year old Dachshund named Chelsi, whose hobbies include: tipping over the garbage, peeing on the floor, and shedding all over the house. She's great. Good thing the little monster is so cute.

I also did end up keeping that new guy from the last post around. He is now the soon to be mister Brittney Ashauer. Lucky Butt. March 26th is the big day. When I say that March 26th is three weeks away out loud I get this weird twitch in my eye. Who decided I could be all grown up and getting married?

I've been experienceing living solo for about three months now. Alli and Davin moved out in the fall and I've been here in the casa with just me and the dog ever since. Geoff will be moving in after the big day. I would suggest living alone for just a few months to anyone. Naked Thursdays suddenly become an all week event!

In honor of it now being March, I just want to give a holler out to Spring, my favorite of the four seasons. Winter is finally over, let the warm sunshine begin!!!!

Fall is here!

Where to Start!!!

A LOT has changed in these last few months! I didn't end up moving to Logan in August. I'm still living with Alli and Davin. I've been looking into moving into an apartment nearby but circumstances have not thus far worked out that way.

I've been taking piano lessons for a few months now and I absolutely love it! I've always wanted to play piano so I figure now is the time while I'm young and don't have a full plate! Because I've loved the piano so much I'm just getting back into playing the viola, which I played for about 5 years as a teenager. It's too early to say how that is going though.

As for the social factors, one of my best friends, Molly, is headed out on a mission next week which has been kind of rough on me because I always wanted to go on one. I can't complain though, even though a mission doesn't feel right for me right now, I'm still doing great things and enjoying life.

One big thing that has changed my life recently is actually not a THING at all. His name is Geoff. We've been dating about two months and its going really well. He is a really great guy. I think I'll keep him around!

Summer Sun!

July is coming to and end and we're rolling into August. Funny how I thought I'd just come home from Oregon, jump back into work for a while and then just head out into the mission field as planned.
So much has happened in the last five weeks. Some I can't exactly write for all to read, but as for the common knowledge stuff...
Kezie turned three this week and I can't believe how cute she and Ivy are! They're getting so big and they are so much fun. I took them swimming a couple weeks ago with Stacy. Ivy loves the water and kicks her little feet and splashes with her chubby arms. Kezie; however, is a bit more hesitant and is scared of the water unless someone is holding her.

The 3rd and 4th of July were a lot of fun. On the third I met up with kellie and her fam and enjoyed the pre-firework festivities at the park, I watched the fireworks with my other awesome friends.

On the 4th, my Mom's side of the family had a BBQ and then watched the Davis High fireworks. It's fun to have a big close family.

The middle of July was my singles ward trip to Moab. It was a lot of fun. I'd have to say my favorite parts were hiking to Delicate Arch at Arches National Park, And Floating Down the river, which felt SO good because it was so hot outside.

I would like to go on another trip before the summer is over(preferably camping). We'll seee if I can get any friends to cooperate...

Another exciting thig about July in particular was that this is the month all my missionaries came home! They are so much fun and it feels good to hang out with our whole group together again.

On the negative side. I have no idea what to do with my life at this point. Welcome to being 21, right? I need to go back to school so I can graduate one of these days but I don't feel good about going back up to Logan right now. I've decided to stay in Davis County for now because I like it and have a lot of great friends here, but because I'm currently living with Alli and Davin and it is less than amazing, I find myself without a home! It's a problem. Any suggestions?

Oregon Week 3

Here I am, nearing the end of week three here in the Mt. Hood national forest. I've been a little bummed this week, spirits aren't necessarily high(if you will) because my family is on our yearly trip to Snowbird this week and I've never missed it before this year. All of us interns are getting a bit of cabin fever. Stick a bunch of city kids from around the nation in a huge forest and thats bound to happen.
Thats not to say we haven't gotten to do a lot of cool things since we got here. I've had some great experiences and learned a LOT.
Last weekend we all took a trip down to Portland and got lost in the Powell book store, which is absolutely huge. I didn't even know where to start when we walked in because there were 3 floors of books. The store takes up a whole city block and is really cool. After we were all booked out, we headed to the River to the Saturday market, which was really cool because the annual Rose Festival happened to be going on that day. It was like a giant carnival with rides and booths of jewelry, wood carvings, food, soaps, clothes etc. to look at and buy. There were also dragon races going on on the river which we all wiggled our way into the crowd to watch.
This week has not been super eventful. But you know you're in Oregon when you take your Forest ranger Expedition out into the back country to explore and find a lonely truck stuck in 2 feet deep snow and have to work together to dig the truck out so the driver isn't stuck there for days and days. That was interesting. Good old snow capped volcanoes of the Cascade mountain range.
The other day, another intern and I went over to Wildwood, which is a pretty nature park a couple miles away. We walked on the boards they have over a giant marshland and watched a beaver making his dam. We also watched a bunch of Rough skinned newts swimming around. They are SO cute to watch swim because they sort of waddle through the water. We also watched a family of ducks swim around and there were plenty of birds chirping and flying by, which we are now able to identify pretty well because of the training we've been going through.
Tomorrow I lead my first official tour of the Timberline lodge which I'm glad to finally be getting over with. Now I'm just working on several other presentations I'll be doing with visitors starting within the next couple of weeks.
Well thats it for now. More updates from the beaver state are coming.

Pictures from Oregon. Week #1

Picture #1 is my cabin. Where I chill when I'm not out and about having adventures in the Mt. Hood National Forest

Picture #2 is the view from Mirror Lake, where I'll be hiking to a bunch this summer. I took this pic my first trip to the Lake

Picture #3 it Tamanawas Falls. Notice the cave behind it where we hung out for a while.

Greetings from the Beaver State!

Well, with Mom's wedding come and past, I find myself here at the base of Mt. Hood. It is beautiful here but SO different from life back in Utah.
I've been here about a week now and it has been an adventure for sure. I've already gotten to do so many great things.
There are 5 of us interns. 3 girls and 2 boys. We are from North Carolina, Missouri(2), Michigan, and Utah. We are all so different and it took until about Thursday for us to really open up to eachother, but we're having fun now and starting to be ourselves around each other. Being LDS, I stick out from the group as well as the locals like a sore thumb. I'm not saying thats a bad thing, it is just taking everyone some getting used to because I live differently than the others here.
Here are some of the interesting things I've gotten to do since last Monday...

- I have hiked miles and miles. My favorites include the Beautiful view from the top of Hunchback Trail, and Tamanawas falls- where we interns were stuck in a HUGE hail storm.

-We also got to help the Mt. Hood fishery with their smolt traps. Smolt traps are traps in which the forest service catch young fish such as Steelhead trout, and Coho Salmon and study them to make sure they are healthy and abundant in the rivers that flow off of Mt. Hood. We got to hold the fish in order to weigh them, measure them, and give them tatoos so we can track them.

-We also have spent time up at the Timberline Lodge, a ski lodge built halfway up Mt. Hood in 1937. It is an amazing lodge where we as interns will be leading tours and working a lot this summer. Mt. Hood is the second most climbed mountain in the world. I've been halfway up it!

-We have spent a lot of time exploring the area and have visited some beautiful waterfalls and tourist areas around the Columbia River Gorge. Including the Columbia River Gorge museum, where we met a bald eagle who lost a wing and is kept alive and in good care. We also met some injured owls and a Paragen Falcon.

-Some other things on our to-do list for the next several weeks here at the ranger station and around the mountain include... snowboarding at Timberline Lodge, Bungee jumping at the Ski-bowl recreation area nearby, leading some campfire talks and hikes for tourists, backpacking, CPR training, researching multiple topics concerning the mountain, and kayaking the Salmon river! We looked into some Kite Boarding lessons on the river, but at $180 per person, we were quickly detered from the idea.

Well friends, those are my adventures so far! I'll be back and willing to share my upcoming adventures soon!

A lot of NEW!

Well kids, I don't even know where to start. April has been quite the month in the world of Brittney to say the least. Spring semester here at Utah State is winding down and I have just a hand full of last strings to tie.
This semester I have met some of the coolest kids in the U.S. I'm pretty sure of that. I would never have passed my Technical Writing class without the assistance of the amazing Seth Graves, and Linguistics may have driven me cukoo-bananas without the fantastic Cody Titmus. Jessica Cook was always willing to chat and comfort me when I was just a-freakin out. Alex Maughan and Virinia Smith were also among the coolest kids on campus as far as I'm concerned.

As far as life apart from schoolwork went, my room mates could only have been cooler if one had owned a private night club and a private jet to take us there every night. Tiffany Davis and I are really in the same brainwave and have all sorts of inside jokes and understandings. Christine Koloveas was definitly good for an intertaining quote to add to the quote wall, and a good dancing buddy. Megan Garry is umong the gunuinely nicest people I know.
I WILL MISS MY ROOMIES!

As far as life after spring semester goes. I'm headed to Oregon in less than 30 days! I don't have my flight date yet, which is driving me nuts. I want to know exactly when I go! I hope that the other interns are cool, because it so happens I'll be stuck with them for over three months.

A lot has happened in my personal life too...But nI don't know if the world is ready to hear those details just yet!