The Kate Adventures

    One day in 2008, I remember getting up and getting ready for elementary school. I walked out to the living room and on the television was the morning news. The newscasters announced that "Gordon Hinkley had passed away." President Hinkley was the first President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that I remember and I didn't know how to feel about him dying. Well, with President Hinkley's death, Thomas S. Monson became the prophet who would give me advice and strength through some of the pivotal years of my life.      On January 2, 2018, President Monson passed away peacefully and returned to his Heavenly Father and his sweet wife. Before he left this Earth, President Monson gave us some amazing pieces of advice and I want to share some of my favorite quotes from the 16th modern day prophet!! 1. "Every day of your life is a special occasion." - I love this quote!! It is so easy to forget that every single day is honestly and truly a b...

     I don't remember much from the year 2006, but there was one huge change to the Draper family that year. We gained the final member of our family...Daphne!! Before 2006 there were three Draper kids: Jason, myself, and Michael. I was the princess. I had my own room, I was the only girl and let's be honest, I got just about everything I wanted!! ;) When my parents announced that they were pregnant, I realized that I wanted a baby sister so bad!! I remember saying, "If this baby is a boy, I will be doomed!!" We didn't figure out the gender of the baby until she came out, but I think that Heavenly Father knew exactly what our family (especially what I) needed when he gave us Daphne!      Daphne was the first child that I really got to help take care of. I helped potty train her, I have helped her time and time again when she has been sick, I have fixed her hair, helped bathe her, and continue to help her as she grows up. Daphne was my first roommate. She t...

For the past month I have been staying at my parents house for the winter break. It has been so fun to spend time with my family and to enjoy the warmth and safety that you can't get anywhere but at home!! I have enjoyed staying in my old room and occasionally finding gems from my middle and high school days. One of those gems is a "favorite jar." The Jar!! I honestly do not remember why my young women's group made these jars or what the lesson behind the jars was, but when I found this little container of memories, my heart was warmed! What I do remember about this craft was that we all had popsicle sticks that we wrote down things that make us happy or our favorite things . Looking back, I think that this jar was supposed to be something that we could look at when we were feeling down and just remember a few of the things that make us the happiest! As I rediscovered this jar I was so excited and I had a blast reading some of the popsicle sticks so I wanted t...

Happy New Year!!! Goals and I have had an interesting past. Every year I seem to make more goals than I can even keep track of and by February I am overwhelmed and discouraged. I can't even remember if I made any goals for 2017 and if I did, I certainly didn't keep them. This year, I decided that I wanted to try again with New Year resolutions, but I wanted to be smart and realistic about the goals I made. With this new mindset, I decided that I wanted to make three goals that hopefully will not overwhelm me, but rather encourage me to be a better version of myself for 2018!! My first goal is my spiritual goal for the year and that is scripture study. I haven't promised myself that I am going to read the  Book of Mormon five times or that I am going to get through the entire Bible, instead, I have decided that I just need more scripture study in my life. I need to be more diligent in reading the Book of Mormon every day and I need to study the words of modern proph...

2017 was a great year!! I grew and changed so much in this year and want to tell you about some of the highlights of my year!  {I split 2017 in quarters, so there will be four sections of memories!} 1. Spring Semester!!     My first spring semester of college seemed to be so long!! I had a month for winter break and during this time I had a pretty good schedule. Everyday I would get up and work on summer internship applications for a couple hours and then I would head to work for several hours. After work, I went home, helped with dinner and ended the night with a couple episodes of West Wing  while continuing my application work. Filling out all 20+ internship applications was the first part of my year!! Once classes were back in session I was done with applications and was able to focus on school. I took 17 credit hours and was incredibly busy with my school work and my part time job at the daycare. As much as I enjoyed my job and my classes, this semester...