Good Medicine.

There are a few things that I've decided are good medicine for me:

1.) Family

2.) Friends

3.) The Gospel

4.) and... Planning a dang good party.

I was able to take a quick trip down to Rexburg for Savanna's 26th birthday party. We decided to throw the cutest little black and white party. This is the set up I came up with the help of some great little bar tenders.

Really though.. I think that I should start bar tending on the weekends or something because I would totally get great tips; even the sober people were diggin' my drinks!..oh wait, we were all sober :) That's the best part!

We had a cute set up, a good turn out and a great time. It's insane how much I find joy in planning...it's sickening actually.

But the weekend was spent with great medicine. I mean, I wasn't with my family, but I was with friends who are like family. It was a weekend spent with a bunch of my closest friends which is always a good time in my book. Lets not forget to mention that I got to see Mandy Atwood!! To say that I'm totally obsessed with that girl is an understatement. It's funny that we hadn't seen each other for two years but things was just the same as it was when she left. She will always be a BFF of mine. I love that woman and the fact that she was able to become instant friends with all of mine! On Friday Hyrum and I took her to meet Alex and his roommates and Flo and Janna and some other people that I didn't really know.. we caught up with each others lives, played games I can't even pronounce the name of, ran, danced around, witnessed an intense missionary tag collision and laughed like crazy. That on top of the birthday party made it an all-around good weekend with people I love followed with the ever so familiar drive back to reality, which, as depressing as it sounds, is always necessary.

....there are some changes coming around the corner for me..personal things that I should have done/fixed a while ago. I'm feeling better already :) Stay tuned.

No more sleeping in...

I don't know what I did to my BB to make it hate me, but the last 4 mornings it's decided to not wake me up. I don't know what's wrong with it. I need to take it to the cellular phone Dr but I just don't have the time and I feel dumb. I mean, I should be able to work my freaking alarm clock on my Blackberry... I've been doing it for 3 years on two different models. I just don't get why it decided to stop working now. I must have done something with the setting...

But luckily my body wakes itself up with minutes to spare so I'm not "late" to work. However, this morning was breaking point. I miraculously woke myself up at 7:11 am, jumped in the shower, dried my hair while simultaneously brushed my teeth, got dressed AND managed to slap on some make up and was out of the door by 7:30 because I had a live event running at our corporate headquarters at 8:00. I made it just in time.

One thing that I hate is being late....soooo I gave in and bought my first alarm clock of my very own. Sad, right? I've just always used my cell phone and before that always had my mommy to wake me up. Here she is:

She's not much and I'm a little nervous about her. I mean, what if she's not reliable..more like, What if I set her wrong?

Don't worry though, I changed my whole room around so she'd have a proper place to sit next to my bed! I think she and I will get along. Let's hope.

Lots of Changes and Good Times To Come

Things have been super crazy the last couple of weeks with work and Jamie's Wedding. I really haven't even been able to breathe. I looked at the calendar today (granted I look at my calendar everyday) and noticed that it's the 15th of SEPTEMBER. That means it's the middle of the month which means I'm going to Rexburg next weekend for this girl's birthday:

I'm helping her to plan a little get together.. It's a week away so I realized today that we need to really get on it to have e-vites out by Saturday! I'm sure it will be something marvelous!

Since it's the 15 of September it also means that Bud aka Elder Coleman Wade Hansen aka my favorite missionary/boy/brother in the ENTIRE WORLD is coming home in three months. That's less than 100 days. I can hardly stand it. I just miss him so stinking much. I'm starting to have dreams about seeing him at the airport and getting one of his super big bear hugs and then talking about music and cool shenanigans until we are blue in the face. Seriously, I love him:

omg.. this pic explains it all :)

But I think that the Wedding is definitely bloggable material. The photographer said that pictures won't be done for three weeks (who knows why)...But we took this one at the Temple for Cole since he couldn't be there and since EVERY picture he sends us has him doing the whole "hang loose" thing! we love it.

I could go on forever about all of the happenings of this weekend but I will try to sum it all up the best I can. I will just say that I know my mom was ready for me to head back to Utah before the Wedding even started. It's not a secret that I have weird quirks. I just like to have things a certain way and I'm a bit of a ..well.. control freak. SO when it was time for decorating Friday morning, there were some tense moments, some angry/snappy words and glares exchanged. However, when the decorating was complete on Friday, Mom and I (with the help of Sherri Roche and Dad) put together a really cute set up for the reception.

We of course learned some great lessons from the whole weekend and the planning process that goes into a wedding when you have people in different states trying to put one together.

1.) communication is ALWAYS key

2.) always trust "the list"

3.) Tablecloths are a BIG deal.. I promise (this was surprisingly the source of mom and my headache on Friday.)

4.)Flowers, although super expensive, are the most important decor.. which we successfully went out with a bang. They were SLAMMIN' :) ..thank you Nyssa Floral.

5.) Transporting cake is not an easy task

6.) Break in your new heels before the big day

I could go on and on but I don't want to bore anyone. I also don't want to offend anyone by going into the little hiccups that we had the morning of the wedding. I look at it now and just bust up laughing (sorry Jamie but it's too darn funny.) We'll just say it included two right shoes, funky bangs, a left behind slip and some tears. I will add that all of these things seemed to be huge at the time but I was able to keep my cool (i think) and each of them were taken care of. Minor hiccups.

The second I saw them walk out of the temple holding hands and smiling..none of the little hiccups mattered and it was smooth sailing. They are sealed for time and all eternity!! We had a small group at the temple but it was a perfect small group of people we love. I can't explain how beautiful Jamie was and how happy they are together. It's kind of sickening.. in the best way possible! Breathtaking you might say.

The reception was great as well--simple and great. I think the best part for me was knowing that I helped to make it happen! I had a couple of friends from the ward tell me they want to hire me for their daughters wedding.. haha!! I would so help for funzies. I think it's less stressful doing it for someone who's not in your family. I don't know why.. OK, yeah I do!

We had great food at the reception (thanks to Dad, Costco and Black Canyon's Pies..mmm). Lots of people came, we had so much great help from friends and family and we had a lot of fun! I don't know how many pictures I will be in at the reception since I was running around playing hostess and what not but I had fun. We were all dead tired by the end.. I mean dead tired (we didn't even make it to church the next day) I know.. so bad. But It was great! I can't wait for pictures to come back.

Most importantly-- it's official.. we have two new additions to our small family. James and Regan, my first niece. She's 14 so it's a big change for us, but it's still fun. Now, i'm house sitting and staying with her for the week while Jamie and James are in St. Lucia for their honeymoon (LUCKY!) So we're getting some bonding time. ...Lots of Justin Beiber and Miley Cyrus up in here but it's good :)

NBD..

I was flipping through the channels today and decided to watch "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." I hadn't seen it in a long time and I forgot how funny it is! I especially got a kick out of the intro of the movie... The father tells his daughter that she's getting old and she needs to get married. Now, I'm not saying that my Dad has done this to me. On the contrary.. he's never even mentioned it except for the time I told him that I'd maybe like to serve a mission and he replied with "you should get married instead...." Thanks Dad?

I'm sure any single, normal mormon girl can totally relate to the daughter in the movie as she goes on to say the following (Please note that I nixed the word "Greek" that she uses and replaced it with "Mormon."

She says: "...Because nice Mormon girls are supposed to do three things in life: marry a mormon boy, make mormon babies, and feed everyone.....until the day we die."

HAHA. I'm not complaining... It's totally a good plan. I'm just a little touchy about the subject because since my older sister is getting married.. a handful of people have come up to asking, "When are you going to get married?" or "Well Jenn, you're next...right?!"

Seriously??? You need to step off and get off my back, yo! If I was really concerned about it at all I would agree to an arranged marriage or something....

Oh wait, we don't do those.... HA!

And for the record--I'm only 22! Thanks people :)

Eat, Pray, Love.

Finally saw Eat, Pray, Love tonight. I knew it was going to be an inspiring one.

I wouldn't necessarily say that I really believe in the importance of the whole going on a "spiritual journey" or taking time out to "find yourself." BUT I am a firm believer that everyone needs to know who they are and what they stand for. So if that means you have to pick up everything and get out for a while then I'm all for it. It's important that we work towards becoming our best self. And honestly, I would LOVE to do everything that Julia did in the movie....

We've all felt like we weren't going in the right direction before and because we are all so unique we experience this in completely different ways. The whole time I was watching the movie I kept thinking about the fact that I've graduated from college and moved straight into this new place where I don't know anyone and I've gone straight into a job that I really do enjoy (no matter how stressful it is right now) But I can't help but think, Did I leave anytime to travel and see the world? Am I settling for safe when I know that I meant for something great? Do I like the road I'm heading down?

Anyone who knows me will agree that I'm a little on the obsessive compulsive side when it comes down to a lot of things. Trust me, I don't necessarily like this annoying trait about myself but the fact of the matter is that I am who I am.

There's a part at the beginning of the movie where Julia is in Rome with a new group of friends and they talk about how each city can be described with one obvious word. Julia is then asked what she believes her word is. This would be a word that really describes you and your life.

It's possibly that this hit me so hard because I was faced with this yesterday at work as I was trying to answer the question, "what do you enjoy in your spare time?" I spent a good 30 minutes worried about the picture I was going to submit (had to look good since it was going out to ALL Franklin Covey employees) and the one sentence I was going to use that described Jennifer Hansen. I knew that it had to be good because I wanted everyone to take me seriously as their meeting planner. I honestly don't know why I was so worried about it and why I had such a hard time doing it.

Then came the part of the movie when someone said "Maybe you're a woman in search of your word..." I really feel like that is the stage that I am at in my life. I know that I am a daughter of God and that I have great potential. But I think that I'm still searching for my word. I don't think that I have to drop everything and take a trip by myself to Rome, India and Bali for a year to figure it out (as much as I would LOVE that) but I know that there are so many different adventures to be had in my life as I try to figure out my "word."

I don't know if that make sense when I type it out but it makes sense to me... Oh and I even tried to do the whole "Silence" thing where you take the peaceful route of just being and not talking.. every thing is supposed to be calm. Well, I lasted about 5 minutes. I would have lasted longer but Jamie threatened to throw my BlackBerry out the window. This just proves that so many people get wrapped up in material things and virtual relationships(I'm one of the worst) that we forget to open up our pretty little eyes and pay attention to the things that really matter. This has really been bothering me about myself and it's totally time for a change. I think I'm really going to start meditating or something. I need it. There's too much crap that goes on up in my brain.. It would be beneficial for me I think.

This was a random post but for some reason I can't wrap up how mind blowing this was for me...

EAT, PRAY, LOVE