Haha soo…. the last time I wrote on this blog was when I was in Europe. That seems like forever ago. And I didn’t even finish out the end of my trip. How lame. Well this summer I became a lifeguard and taught swimming lessons at the Ammon pool. It was the best. I loved this summer. Then I would go to Melaleuca in the evenings and work there so I kept busy. I ran a marathon this summer. That is one of the many items on my bucket list and I decided I better do it before my body couldn’t handle it haha. not going to lie that was probably the hardest thing I have ever done. Physically. Except for the time when I had to rescue someone off the bottom of a thirteen foot  pool to become a lifeguard… haha that was hard. I almost drowned. Haha just kidding. But yes the marathon was good. On my nineteenth birthday I made a decent sized list of things I wanted to accomplish before my next birthday. I would say I have a pretty good start to that list… haha. running a marathon was one of them. ok then school… this semester at BYUI is probably one of the best experiences of my life. I have the coolest roommates ever and I love my classes. I have made a lot of friends and I love learning so much so it has been great. I applied for the nursing program. I am hoping to get in in the fall, but if not I will keep trying ha. I really want to be a nurse. So… yes. School is great.

I love thanksgiving break. It is the best. Haha im not going to lie, I didn’t really want to have thanksgiving break. School was going so great and I didn’t want to leave my frieds for a week. But these past few days have been so good I can’t believe I didn’t want to come home. This thanksgiving was the Hale thanksgiving. My dad’s cousins and their kids came from Utah and California and we all ate at my house. Man there were a ton of people there. But it was awesome. After we ate we went and had a football game. I am proud to say that my family was the winning team… Jordan and taylor are unstoppable haha. and Hannah of course.

Today our company left so we went with luke jess and linc up to swan valley to get a tree. This is one of my favorite traditions my family has. Some of my favorite memories come from thee little day trips haha. somehow today I ended up in the creek and had to strip down once I got to the car… haha but it was for a good cause. Lincoln didn’t get a drop of water on him crossing the creek. And we got some great trees. I got one for my apartment im excited. Three of my roommates are from California and I am excited for them to have a real Christmas tree… haha. it was so funny when we were trying to find a place to stop to get a tree Jordan was like man if our family got split up in these mountains for a week I would be the only one who would survive. And my dad was like that’s not true. I would kill an elk and then eat it and then live in its carcass. Haha I started laughing so hard. I love my dad. I have always really really loved my dad, but after some of the things that he has been going though lately I look up to him just that much more. He always puts others before himself and he is honestly the most Christ like person I know. I love that man so much. so yes. This break has been great and school is the best. I am so happy right now. Life is good.

what?!?! i haven't written since italy?? oh my lanta.. well it is going to be impossible to catch you up but i will do my best. haha A LOT can happen in 5 days. where to begin...
florence. is. beautiful. haha just thinking back to it makes me smile so big. it feels like that was forever ago. we did a lot of cool things in florence but i think instead of telling you everything i have done i will tell you what i have learned. but let me tell you about rome really quick. rome wouldn't have been half as amazing if i didn't have jord here with me but because of him rome has made my whole trip. the people i have met are incredible. i will talk about them in a minute. alright so here is a list of things we have done in rome. i know i will probably spell some of them wrong sorry. we visited the pantheon (incredible!), ate gelato, saw the ancient roman city, saw the trevvi (?) fountain, the vatican, like 6 churches, ate some more gelato, shopped, went to the temple grounds, ate more gelato, and saw the pope. yes i saw the pope today. haha at one point we got pretty close to him too. it was weird though how they worship him. they put him on a jeep thing and drove him around the vatican while everyone was chanting and listening to funny music. its not what i thought is would be like at all. but im still happy i got to experience it.
shades and i went to visit three different families. i enjoyed it very much. haha italians feed you so much and we went to their houses back to back and i was dying. i swear i have gained like 15 pounds. the first two families didn't speak english. well the first knew a few words and could kind of understand me but the second couldn't at all. so i sat there for 2 hours and listened to jordan speak italian with some of his favorite people and it made me so happy because i could tell how happy jordan was. i wish you could have seen his face last night when we finally got home he was beaming. he said he would pay the 3500 dollars just for these last two days. he is in heaven. anyways the third family we went to visit was SO amazing. it was an extended family that found the gospel through their cousin (peachy) and changed their lives. they shut down their family owned restaurant so that they all could attend church on sunday. they have made incredible sacrifices for the gospel and it was so neat to finally be able to meet them and talk to them about their conversions and their lives now. we met up with sharon and jerome (cousins) and then went to eric and ann's house (sharon's sisters place) where they had a party for jordan. they even invited the chef from the restaurant peter, who was recently baptized. there was also some girl there that everyone called bing bing but i never learned her real name haha. they are all Philippians and i now want to live in the phillipines. haha do you know how cool it would be to serve a mission there? mom i bet that thought makes you so happy! haha. but they bore testimony in almost everything they said and i fell in love with them instantly. no wonder jordan was so happy on his mission.
well that was the highlight of rome. besides the food. italian food is amazing. haha we its kind of funny we all center our plans around meals and then make plans around that. i love it.
today there was supposed to be a big earthquake in rome but it never came. 20 percent of the city left last night. haha so people were kind of freaking out today in the city but luckily nothing happened. that i am aware of haha. but we were in the metros at the time it was supposed to hit and grace was freaking out hahaha.
right now i am in a city called osteo, which is a city on the edge of the Mediterranean sea about an hour outside of rome. we went swimming and played on the beach this afternoon and it was sweet. i love the weather here.
well here are a few things i have learned these last few days. number one, life is about experiences. i need to stop worrying about material things and instead look for opportunities to experience life and continue to learn and explore new things. number two, people are so amazing. everyone has a story and a reason for why they are who they are. i am SO grateful for the people i have met these last few weeks. the people in italy along with the people on this tour. i have made two amazing friends these past two weeks and they make me so happy. haha caitlyn reminds me a lot of allison and is hilarious and devyn is just awesome. number three, i am grateful for theraflu. haha i have been sick today (which is why this post is the way it is) and the medicine here just doesn't compare to my theraflu. haha.
well, we fly out for spain tomorrow. im really excited! jason aren't you jealous?? haha it will be fun. and then after sapin we are going home!! i cant believe how time flies. even though i have loves being here in italy, i will be happy to go home. i hate living out of a suitcase and i am missing you all like crazy!!

Austria!!

haha. vienna was an adventure. i enjoyed it. it is so weird going to a new country every third day with people speaking a different lauguage and eating different foods and acting differently towards you. the people of vienna were not the nicest i've met but i still enjoyed it. haha i will leave it at that.
vienna is a city of music. the first night we arrived we went to a Bach orchestra concert which was really good. i LOVE music so i think that i appreciated it a lot more than most of the others in our group. haha ok so here is how vienna went- our teachers take us into the middle of the city square tuesday morning and give us a 48 hour metro ticket and 30 euros and said we will see ou al thursday morning at 830. dont be late or we will leave you. haha my jaw seriously dropped. i was like what the crap?! haha none of us knew anything about the city. we didn't even have a map. but let me tell you 30 euros plus the money in our pockets and 2 days in vienna opens up endless possibilities. i loved it. we went to this huge cemetery where beethoven is burried along with quite a few other famous musicians. there was also a large section where they burried all the jews and it was a very humbling and sacred place. the part of the cemetery that had been set aside for the jews was SO overfilled and had been vandalized under the direction of hitler and they never went back and fixed it. so they pretty much let it go and it was honestly like a forest in there. but it was VERY very beautiful and i loved the peace that i felt there.
we also went to a few palaces. there was one that had this GIGANTIC garden in the back. it was actually Marie-Antoinette's childhood home. well one of them. but the gardens i swear were at least a square mile and were so beautiful. some day i want to go back there.
i love the food in vienna. i have eaten more in the last three days than i have probably the tow weeks before i came. but it is so worth it haha. the food just keeps gettin better and better. we went to this medieval restaurant and they brought out these huge platters of meat and mashed potatoes and we were directed to eat the food using only our hands. haha it was good and a fun experience. and nelly made her baby crying noise in ther and people were staring and made it totally worth the whol night. haha i'll explain that next paragraph.
we also went to an opera last night. i know an opera in vienna!! haha but im not going to lie it wasn't the best experience. it was in a different language, s owe had to keep looking down at the translator screen so you couldn't watch the opera. and we had to stand so... we left at intermission. haha nobody liked it very much. haha funny story. someone said something negative about the opera, something i will not say on my blog haha, and nelly started laughing so hard that she was crying. and it reminded me EXACTLY of my mom. and then jordan started laughing so hard at nelly that HE was crying. i have honestly never seen him do that. it was so funny. nelly is the funniest lady i hav ever met. she can make this sound that sounds exactly like a crying baby and often does it when we are in concerts/restaurants just to weird people out and i LOVE it. hahahahaha.
well thats vienna. today we went to a place called velden. im not going to lie i think this place might top paris. for those of you who have been to priest lake it is like that but ten times prettier. i know i didn't think it was possible either. i have never seen a more beautiful place in my whole life. we are staying at a "youth hostile" which really isnt like a hostile at all. this place is a camp where kids come in the summer and there is a beautiful lake, canoes, boats, all kinds of sports courts, a pool, biking etc. when we first got here we went swimming in the lake which was awesome and then me, grace, shades, devyn, and caitlyn (two awesome girls i have met on the tour) went and rode bikes into town and all over in the forest for a couple of hours. today had been one of my favorite so far. but im pretty sure i have said that every day haha. well tomorrow is italy! shades is freaking out!! im so hapy to be there with him. i am SO excited for italy. i know its going to be over so soon and im sad but i have loved every moment of europe and am so grateful i have had this opportunity to learn and grow.

London

well, i haven't written since i arrived in London so i will share some of the highlights. but before i talk about london i've gotta tell you about salisbury. it was so beautiful. i loved that place. and they had amazing food haha. it is just like this cute little old fashion european town and i loved it so much. we went to the salisbury cathedral which was really neat. i fell in love with the stained glass window at the front of the cathedral. its so funny because you cant even see the stained glass from the outside but once you walk in and see the light shining through the windows it is amazing. i know i have an obsession with the stained galss windows but i cant help it. they all tell stories of the life of christ and they are beautiful. i also saw the original magna carta there which was really cool. ok so london...
friday was the day of the wedding. it was CRAZY. haha im not going to lie my first impression of London was not the best. everyone was drunk and it smelled like smoke and beer everywhere. but i love it now haha. not as much as paris, but i still love it. but nothing will ever compare to paris. ok so friday we went to this place called trafalger square. it is the city center and tons of peop0le just hang out there and it is surrounded by all these giant buildings and museums and such. but the wedding procession had just gone through there and so everyone was going crazy but it was funny. friday night was les mis. im not going to lie i fell asleep for part of the first act haha. my sleeping patterns have been so bad and so honestly every time i sit down for more than 5 minutes i am out. im not even kidding i fell aslep 4 times today just sitting down on benches haha. but the second half was really good! haha i know im lame. i would like to see it again. but the orchestra was amazing and the voices were amazing and i really enjoyed it.
saturday we went to the british museum and then to a place called portabello road. it is like this giant flee market. after that nelly got tired and so we hopped on a double decker bus to see some of the sights in london. ok now let me tell you about nelly because i have a funny story about her. she is probably 50 years old. she is a studnet at byui and has 6 kids. she is from guatemala and is no taller than 5 feet. she is HILARIOUS. her and jordan have become best friends so she comes with us everywhere. haha ok so we decide to ge t off the bus in the largest shopping mall in england which was the first mistake. we went into the nearest store and it was the craziest thing i have every seen. it was a gigantic store and they were having crazy sales and so it was PACKED. i have a picture i wish i could download it. but nelly just like took off and none of us knew where she was at. so we shopped for a while and then started looking for her and no lie we looked for an hour. so you know how difficult it is to find a 5 foot nothing guatemalean in a store packed with europeans? haha it isn't easy. so finally after an hour we found her. and i was like nelly you need to stick with me we are getting out of this store. no im not even lying we got on the escalator and turned around and she was gone. IT TOOK US ANOTHER HOUR TO FIND HER. haha i was so pissed i felt really bad for grace. finally we just went outside and sat down and the curb and started laughing/crying. haha but we eventually got out of there.
WICKED WAS AMAZING. i loved it so much. i wish i could go back. the music was better than the actual cd and it was one of the coolest things ever.
today has probably been my favorite day so far. we went to church this morning which was the coolest experience ever. this past week i have been in places that are very unfamiliar to me with an unfamiliar language and unfamiliar people and unfamiliar customs but the moment i walked into church this morning the spirit was so strong and i felt like i was home. the spirit was incredibly strong the whole meeting and it was so neat for me to realize that no matter where you are in the world you will always find the gospel and the spirit to be constant. it was just another reminder to me of how amazing this gospel is and how blessed i am to have it in my life. i cannot imagine what it would be like if i didn't have a testimony of this church.
after church we went to the buckingham palace to watch the guard change. then we went to the national gallery which i loved. i have fallen in love with vincent van gogh's paintings. then we went to st pauls cathedral. you need to look it up online it is so beautiful. then we went to an organ recital in westminster abby. that was really cool. they still had the flowers and trees in there from the wedding. and the organist was amazing. i really enjoyed that.
im sorry i just rambled forever. next time i wont be so detailed haha. it is crazy i have only been gone a week and i have gianed an appreciation for so many things already. here is a list of the top 5:
1. family/friends.
2. the gospel
3.being able to communicate.
4. american food (i know im crazy)
5. giving tay babe a hug. haha i miss him so bad. mom could you give him one for me? hannah as well.
well i hope you guys are having fun in california! i cant believe you didn't take jason with you. you guys are mising out.
well in the morning we fly to vienna. this week consists of austria and italy this weekend. wahoo!! i love and miss you all!

I really enjoyed today. It was much more chill and it was nice because when I woke up today my body was SO sore. Haha we have been walking a ton.
Right now we are waiting in the port to catch a ferry across the London channel. I'm excited to be a part of the royal wedding tomorrow. Mom please don't worry we will be safe. But if something happens I promise Tay can have my car haha. Oh and how did elections go?
Well today we went to Normandy and saw the d day beaches and the American cemetary and monument. It was a very humbling experience. After that we went to a town called bayeux. Sorry I told you wrong whit ha.there we went to the tapestry which was pretty cool but grace and I got bored pretty fast. So we went and walked the streets of this beautiful little town and it was just like in a movie. Then we turned the corner of this street and there in front of us was the most beautiful cathedral. You should google it it is called the bayeux notes dame cathedral. The stained glass was incredible inside. I was really happy we got to see that because yesterday was a sad day haha. Not really it was amazing but I ended up not going to versailles because me and jord were going to go on a bike ride around Paris but that didn't work out so we went to saint chapelles which is famous for having some of the most amazing stained glassvin the world but they cut the line off right in front of us and said they were closed for the day. It was430! Ha but it's ok yodey made up for it. And it just gave me another excuse to go back to Paris someday I loved it.
Well it feels like I've been gon a month because we have done so much. This is one of the most amwzingbexoeriences of my life.
I am so excited got this weekend! Salisbury in the morning then London after. Les mis Friday and wicked Saturday. I'm so blessed to have this opportunity.
Well I wrote a long blog today bevausevi don't think I'll have Internet for a while. I hope all is well back home. Tell Tay babe and han I love them and have something fir them. and mom just think when you wake up in the morning the wedding will be over and all will be well. Love you guys. Ttyl

Sorry I didn't write last night I fell asleep. Yesterday was AMAZING. We started off touring the noted dame cathedral which was my favorite part of Paris. I am not even going to try and explain because words can't express. We then went to the louve and saw the mona lisa and my favorite painting the marriage of Cana. It was such a cool experience. Last night we went up to the top of the Eiffel tower and watched the sunset and then stayed to see the city of lights from the best view in Paris. Well gotta run love you all!

I LOVE Paris. It is not what I was expecting at all. It is so beautiful. The city is beautiful the people are beautiful the language is beautiful even the graffiti is beautiful. Heaven's gotta be just like this.
I never knew I could fit so much into 12 hours. We went to the orsay, the notre dame cathedral, the Eiffel tower (which is AMAZING!!), a tour on a boat in the river, the arch and French food. We haven't slept in a really long time so I'm going to bed. I will try and ketp this updated but it is not east on this iPod. Mom maybe I should just get a calling card haha. Ok well love you all!

i hate goodbyes.

I love A Walk To Remember.

this is a story 'bout the three of us... :)

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! ah... just had to get that out. felt good. i don't remember the last time i have been this happy. :) i have the most amazing family and friends ever and then make me so happy. let me just tell you about a few of them...
grace called me tonight with the best news i've heard in a long time. greg is gong to be in st george!! which is not texas!! and me and grace are going to go see him next weekend and i am SO EXCITED!! oh man i miss that kid. he's pretty amazing.. i cant wait! :) you know when you sometimes say goodbye to people that you know you won't see for a long time.. and it sucks? and you know the pain will be so bad that, as sad as it sounds, you kinda have to try and move on so you wont be way depressed? well thats what i had to do with greg and when i heard i was going to see him again so soon i just had this huge flood of memories come back and it made me so excited!! right now i am listening to the song broken bones by aqualung and it is such a sweet song. good find greg. :) thus the title of my blog post- a line from the song.
it has been so good having jordan home. he is the best. i love talking to him and i am looking to europe next month with my best friend. :)
whitney is probably the most amazing person i know. she has been some CRAZY crazy tought times and i am so amazed with her attitude and willingness to learn from the challenges placed before her. im happy that i have the opportunity to hang out with her so often. we have a good time and have created some... haha...  uh memorable experiences.
well i am going to go learn how to play broken bones on the piano so... yeah. i am going to bed one happy girl tonight!!

utah!!

this weekend my family went to utah. i had such a blast! i love spending time with my family. we spent the majority of the time visiting family. friday night me and jord drove to provo after dropping our family off in pg and went and hung out with ben and jenny. haha oh man, i wish i could explain to you what went down friday night. but i think it is best if i just leave it at "it was a great night." haha you're welcome jenny for not saying more.
saturday was spent with cousins from three of the four cartwright families. we met up at brooke's new house (which i loved by the way) and then went out to lunch at fudruckers. i love eating at that place so much. not because i love the food but because i love the memories i have there. we stop there every year on the way to priest lake. haha oh man... i just had a flood of memories. i love when that happens. this last year with al and kim at priest lake was one of my favorite memories of all time. we also have eaten there before dropping luke and jordan off at the mtc. so i have some good memories at that place. anywayssss..... so the cousins met up for lunch. i hadn't been some of them in a while and it made me so happy. haha i am funny when it comes to my extended family. i am already excited for when margy and craig are going to come home because i know everyone will come up for their homecoming. too bad they still have a year and a half left huh?
after that we went to the byu basketball game. it was a big game- they played their rivals so it was packed. but it was so sweet. there is this player that plays for byu that everyone is obsessed with. his name is jimmer. but jordan said that he thinks taylor looks like jimmer so we have started calling tay jimmer. tay babe is one of those people that you never call by his real name. like if i were to call him taylor i would be shocked with myself. everyone at school and church call him tay babe. i gave him that nickname a few years ago and it has just stuck. and you wanna know whats funny? he loves it. we will never admit it but he loves that the girls call him babe. haha oh man i love that kid so much. he tells me things that he doesn't tell anyone else and it makes me so happy. like tonight he came up to my room and showed me THE FUNNIEST note he is giving to the girl he likes for valentines. haha it said something like... "you have the most attractive laugh. you hair is so beautiful." and funny things like that. and he is down listening to dawson mcalliser right now. haha that boy cracks me up. i love him so much.
man i keep getting distracted. so yeah... we went to another cousins house saturday night. she had a harp and let me play around on it and i want to learn to play it so bad!! chloe murri tried teaching me the other day but i think it may take more than one lesson... haha thats ok. im willing.
today we visited more family and went to see my mom's friend in layton. i swear my mom has more friends than anybody i know. it is so crazy. some day i hope i can be like that.
so yeah... i had a blast this weekend!! i love my family so much. i am so happy for my brothers. it has been so great having jord home. we have bonded so much just this last month and i feel like i can talk to him about anything. it is especially great because he has a terrible memory so i know if i just need to get something off my chest he will forget everything we talked about by the next day. haha maybe thats not a good thing. jord is the best... but his wife is going to have to be patient with his horrible memory.
well my life is going well. i am actually extremely content right now. its a good thing that all the men are at school or i may be tempted to not go back... haha just kidding. i love learning but i am happy i have this four month break to work and spend time with my family. i love my jobs and i have already met some amazing people that i would consider to be some of my best friends.
i am looking forward to so many things. i am looking forward to europe, this summer, being able to run races again, the rigby triathlon, hanging out with some of my favorite people, byui, and hopefully utah state some time in my near future!! i am shooting for next january, but we'll see what happens. :)

cabin!

On Thursday my family went up to the cabin with my cousins that are in town for the holidays. Even though it wasn’t a long stay, I still had a blast! Who knew you could pack so much fun and memories into 24 hours eh? We filled our time with food (I know a shocker right? haha), reading, snowmobiling, staying up late playing the guitar and singing, and staying up even later playing settlers with the cousins. But the best part of the whole cabin experience was the epic sled hill. Haha I never use the word epic- I actually hate it- but there is honestly no other way to explain this hill. It was the coolest thing I have ever seen. The people that we renting the cabin from had this huge hill in their back yard, and they had made different courses for tubes to go down with jumps and curves and things.  There was one, the extremely fast and curvy one, that seemed to be everyone’s favorite. There was even a floodlight so we could do it at nighttime. Haha except once when we tried making a train at night and it was me, josh, then taylor and the rest of the gang behind him, and josh I guess forgot to hold on to taylor’s feet and so me and josh went down without everyone. We somehow ended up flipped around, so josh was in the front and we were facing the top of the hill and I started laughing SO HARD that by the time we got to the bottom of the hill I honestly rolled off my tube and threw up my dinner. Ha! I have never laughed so hard that I threw up before.  And even though I felt sick for the rest of the night, it was definitely worth the memory. :)

This picture shows the top half of the hill.  This is our first attempt at a seven-man train. :)

For most families it is the grandma's diamond ring that is coveted.  but not in this family. the most coveted possession in the Cartwright family is this settlers card that i am holding in my hand. there are two things you must know about my family- we are extremely competitive and we are obsessed with settlers of catan. so tay babe, being the stud he is, made this championship card. the winner of the settlers game board gets their name on the back of the card and bragging rights for 24 hours until the floor is once again opened up to challengers. after a very late night thursday, i am proud to say that i am the current holder of this card. even though taylor and josh both would not speak to me after my victory, i went to bed a happy girl with the championship card in my pocket. :)

I was so happy that i got to go to the cabin with my family this week. i haven't been feeling like myself lately, but when i was up there with the people i love most and make me the happiest, i felt like the old megan. it was good for my soul. :) haha

oh p.s. HAPPY NEW YEAR!! i don't think i have every been more excited to start a new chapter of my life. i have a feeling this will be a great year full of challenging but amazing experiences. my two main goals for the year are to run a marathon and to get accepted into nursing school.