Paint With Faith: Grateful...

Today I would just like to say....

I am so extremely grateful and I thank God every day for the friends I've made here at SVU.

I've never had best friends like this before.

(Mckae, Chelsea, Emma if you are reading this know that I love you all.)

But these friends I've made here, my squad, are a gift straight from God.

With them I feel accepted. I feel loved. I feel important and needed and wanted.

And I don't know what I would do without them...

So here they are for your general approval and consideration.

The Squad.

I'll begin with Ashley.

She was my original roommate, who I met on my way down to SVU so we could see if we would survive living together.

To be honest neither of us was sure, there was an incident of me texting her while under the influence of drugs, post-surgery, and of a certain song from Wicked discussing a blond roommate that wouldn't stop playing in my head.

But similar to Elphaba and Glinda, we became best friends.

And I LOVE this girl!

She loves her family and is a miniature of her mom. But like a Lisa 2.0-she is an Ashley.

She is strong. She is good. She is beautiful. She is smart. And she is kind.

She took the time to see the good in her crazy Canadian roommate who physically can't stop talking sometimes and is a complete nerd.

And through late night deep spiritual discussions, soccer, a concussion, and 9 of the best months of my life, we have become best friends. Ashley Preisler, you are going to be an amazing missionary and I am going to miss you so much!

Our first meeting in Utah- at Costa Vida which I now love thank you very much Ashley!

Our first day of classes! Woot woot!

This is our signature pose. Went to the DC temple together, and unintentionally matched. :)

We were chilling at the airport waiting for our flights home at Christmas, and matching.

She has a deep and abiding love of rice krispies. She may kill me for posting this pic but I love it and I love her!

Next is Mac.

Mac Cottle who is Canadian too but denies it. Her grandfather was born in Canada, right near my hometown so I claim her as one of my own.

But besides that point she is a proud Oregonian.

She flips between being a princess and a ba every day, and I love that about her.

She is strong and trustworthy and good and cares a lot more than she will ever let on to anyone.

I am so glad she moved into our room!

And together we nerd out over Netflix, Harry Potter, books and musicals.

And I will be honest. We have no pictures of the two of us together. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.

It is so awkward.

However, we decided the reason for this is because our bonding is watching Netflix together, separately in the dark. And having deep discussions. And neither of us are the type to instigate pictures so oh, well....

I am definitely going to die for posting this photo. But that is Mac asleep in the back on our drive to FLORIDA!

This is from one of our very first weeks at SVU, getting ice cream. She is on the far right, next to me. :)

This is a self-portrait of her. JK, but she is Audrey Hepburn in her own mind, which I fully support because Audrey is Amazing.

Here is a real photo of her. She is beautiful. But what I love best about her is that she is even more beautiful on the inside. She loves her family, especially her other 2/3's of her triplet gang. And she is brilliant. And cares so much about making the world better. I love you Macklemore!

Then there is Uri.

Gosh what do you even say about Uri?

Maybe I should start with the fact her first name is Savannah, but we all call her by her last name.

She is so musically talented, and she didn't even let us know forever. But she has mad skills.

She is deeply loyal and protective of her family and friends. And we love her for that.

She is so freaking funny and always makes us laugh.

She is smart and courageous and daring and good.

But what I love most about her is how she can always tell when something is wrong with me. We don't always get along. To be honest we are very good at annoying each other. But she knows when I'm struggling. And often I will laugh it off, or deny it, but she can always tell. And I am so grateful for her in those moments, for seeing beyond the facade I put on and just being there. I love you Uri!

This is Uri. She's kind of freaking awesome. ;)

During midterms we were stressed, and exhausted, and annoyed. But we were also matching. And that is obviously the priority, so we stepped away from our studying to take a picture. Gosh I love this girl! Thank you for always being there when I need to be distracted from my problems.

Sierra.

Basically imagine the perfect person and you are close to picturing Sierra.

She is so cool you can't even handle it. She is also so humble.

Food is her comfort food. (Probably why we get along so well.) She also is kick-butt athletic and loves exercising, lifting weights and getting swoll.

She is smart and studious. But loves those study breaks.

And her love for her little sister melts my heart. I knew we would be best friends when she told me the story about how she prayed for a little sister and her prayers were answered.

She also is gluten, dairy and soy free. I have a soft spot in my heart for people who can't eat food I guess. (Mckae and Emma I'm looking at you two)

But seriously though. Sierra is the bomb.com.

This is the two of us. I spend time with her hoping some of her natural swag will come over to me. It hasn't happened yet but I am optimistic.

Sometimes we match. And we look mighty fine doing so. Sierra and I just click sometimes and have deep life discussions and it is freaking awesome. I love you C-Ratchet.

Then there is Kadee. To my eternal annoyance she doesn't have a middle name. I don't know why and I don't care to find out why. I just devote my time to figuring out a middle name for her.

Some days she is Kadee Jeanette or Kadee Louise or Kadee May or Kadee Priscilla. On bad days she is Kadee Jezebel.

But my favourite is Kadee Kadeline.

It has a nice ring to it...

I count my blessings every day and meeting Kadee is one of those blessings.

I visited my family last weekend and was talking about my friends. Specifically about Kadee. And my mom asked me if she was a friend who cared as much about me as I did about her. Obviously, by the fact that question was asked it is a rare occurrence. And I could whole-heartedly answer yes.

Kadee and I are bosom sisters like Anne of Green Gables and Diane.

I am so glad I met her.

Both small-town girls. Oldest children. We get it.

And I am grateful for that.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE! Someday I will frame this picture and hang it in my house because I love it so much. This is my Kadee.

Here is the two of us at the DC temple.

And this is my 19th birthday. She is so darling, back home people call her Lady, as in Kadee Ladee.

I love you Kadee Kadeline.

So that is my squad. They make me happier than I have ever been. I have found the best friends that everyone talks about, and they were well worth the wait. Girls can be so petty and catty towards each other. But these ladies are amazing. We strengthen each other. We encourage each other. We make each other better. I feel so blessed and lucky to have them in my life.

SQUAD OUT!