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...

     When I decided to go to ECU I was told that going to East Central University was going to just be an extension of Ada High School since they are in the same town...whoever said that was incredibly wrong. I started my second year at ECU this week and was reminded how awesome my University is!       1.) Small campus with a big community! I love that I can see people I know every time I leave my dorm room! I know professors, football players, band members, sorority girls and everyone in between. I am so glad that I can be friends with so many different people because I go to a small school. It makes life so much more interesting to have a lot of different kinds of people in your friend group! 2.) Parking You always hear horror stories about parking at college but at ECU the parking is not a problem and is pretty cheap! 3.) Athletic Teams I LOVE that I am able to know the college athletes and then get to support them at their games! School spi...

Hi guys!      I am finally back in Oklahoma and it feels so good! The last week in Maryland was tough. There was a lot to get done in preparation for our symposium and our departure. On Thursday August 10, 2017 I was able to present my research on blue crab population ecology at the final symposium. I was able to go first and it went very smoothly. We also had a poster session where we all presented our posters. I was so glad to finish this project and have a completed product! Presenting my research!      On Friday August 11, I flew out of Salisbury and flew into Charlotte. I stayed in Charlotte for four hours until I boarded my last plane that took me back to OKC. It was such a smoother travel day this go round. None of my planes were delayed and both my luggage and I successfully got back to Oklahoma. I flew into the most beautiful Oklahoma sunset and was so happy to be home!      The next morning, I moved into my dorm room! I was ...

Dear Class of 2018,      In just over a week you will begin an adventure of "lasts." You will have your last first day of school, your last football game, your last state test, and so many more lasts. This new journey is one full of excitement, nerves, and unknowns. You will walk into the high school as a senior and you will feel on top of the world. Pep assemblies, sporting events, and all other activities will seem so much more important than they were last year, but with the fun comes a new level of responsibility. You will start applying to college, have a lot of big decisions to make, and will have the underclassmen looking up to you. I hope that as you go throughout your senior you find joy and have fun, but that you don't forget the things in life that are most important.      Two years ago, when I was a senior, I made a list of 50 Things to Remember During Senior Year . This list put life into perspective and helped me figure out where I wanted m...

Debbie's Car      I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I ONLY HAVE TWO WEEKS LEFT! It is crazy how fast this week went and I am sure that the next two will only go faster! This week has been filled with activities that are helping us produce our final projects. Each intern has to have a final report, PowerPoint presentation, and poster. Most of us are doing all of these for the first time so we appreciate all of the help we are getting! On Monday, we had another REU group come in and we did some collaborative seminars that taught us how to write elevator pitches and how to best make a resume. These activities were very informative and it was neat to meet more interns. Friday was anther seminar day. We had a two part communications seminar where we learned how to make a good PowerPoint presentation and a good research poster. All of the interns got a lot of work done at this seminar and it helped me a lot! Right now, I am about half way done with both my poster and presentation. The ...

     Hi guys! I feel like I haven't posted in a long time but I have been SO busy this week!      I have been teaching Primary classes at church on Sundays and have loved that! It brings me extra peace each week to spend a couple hours with some kiddos. I thoroughly miss my daycare kids and my Primary kids back at home and cannot wait to see them in just a couple weeks! I know!! Just three more weeks until I am back in Oklahoma! Crabs! Crabs      As we are nearing the end of this internship, the workload is increasing! Our final presentation is on August 11 and for that symposium we have to have a poster, PowerPoint presentation, and a final paper. All of these things have the same information on them so theoretically they shouldn't be very hard, but trying to format them nicely takes some time. I have been finishing my last bits of data analysis this week and started these final presentations. This "crunch time" work reminds me of ...

     Hi guys! I have had such a good week and I am so excited to tell y'all about it!      The majority of this week has been full of work. I have been working a lot on more data formatting and analysis. To put it in perspective, I have 27 years worth of data about blue crabs in the Maryland Coastal Bays. That means that in order to get meaningful results I have to extract certain facts about the crabs and this is a very time consuming and tedious job. I am getting more and more excited about my work as I am getting closer to having results and I am hoping that I can get everything done within the next three weeks! Rocket launch pad!      This weekend was our last set of field trips and it was so much fun! On Friday we got up and headed to the NASA center at Wallop's Island. I was so excited to go visit NASA because ever since I saw Hidden Figures I have dreamed about working for NASA. Unfortunately, the field of science that I am real...

     Ever since I was about 5 years old I have had a special place in my heart for boy bands. I have loved the Backstreet Boys, One Direction, Five Seconds of Summer, and especially New Kids on the Block! NKOTB announced a tour for summer of 2017 but I figured that no one would want to go to their concert with me and that the tickets would be too expensive so I pushed the concert to the back of my head. In early May, my dad and I were on a road trip and for some reason the New Kids concert came up and I decided that I was going to try my darnedest to get to their show!      I some how convinced my mom and my mom's best friend to go to the concert with me and I was ecstatic!I bought the tickets, got off work, got a new outfit, and pulled my Keds out of the closet. I was so excited and more than prepared for this once in a life time opportunity.      So on a Wednesday afternoon we packed up the car and drove to Tulsa for the best night of my ...

     If there is one quote that explains me it is, "I wasn't born in Oklahoma but I got there as fast as I could!"      I was born in Utah but at about a year old my parents moved us to Norman, Oklahoma. For awhile I only wanted to get out of Oklahoma. I wanted to move to Wyoming or Tennessee or anywhere but the Sooner State. I have since learned that I love Oklahoma and wouldn't mind if I stayed there for the entirety of my life!      As I have been here in Maryland, I have missed a few things about Oklahoma....      1. Cows! - as weird as it seems I absolutely miss seeing cows everyday. I didn't realize how many cows actually live in Oklahoma and just how comforting it is for me to seem them.      2. Country Music - I am still listening to Tim McGraw and George Strait while I am out here but the people I am with don't always appreciate my music choices.      3. Rodeos - I haven't been to...

     Happy Fourth of July everyone! I enjoyed my holiday so much and hope that you all did too!      When I was preparing for this internship I was worried about what I would end up doing for the Fourth. Would I hang out with friends or maybe church family? Would I even see fireworks? My parents kept assuring me that the interns would find something to do and although I did not believe them they ended up being right!      Twelve of the fourteen interns all hopped in the two vehicles we have and headed for Ocean City, Maryland. Ocean City is about an hour away and is a huge tourist destination. There is a boardwalk right on the beach with tons of cute shops and places to eat and then there is so much beach area! We decided to go there because we figured everyone could find something to do and it wasn't too far of a drive.      We left campus in the morning to avoid traffic and in hopes of finding parking. We arrived at Ocean...

     As many of you know, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (commonly known as Mormons). A cool thing about this church is that congregations meet all over the world, so if you are on vacation or moving to a new place you can usually find an LDS church a reasonable distance from you. All of these congregations are taught the same thing which makes the gospel universal. Whether you are in South Africa or South Carolina, if you can find an LDS ward you will be able to learn about our Savior every Sunday. For the most part of my life I have not had to worry about this because I have moved only once and don't travel very often, but the fact that I can find the gospel even when I am so far from home this summer is priceless. I will never again take for granted my amazing home ward and the amazing blessing that I have to get myself to church every Sunday!      I miss my home ward a lot and miss my callings there, but I am learning ...

     Hi guys! I feel as though I have not updated you guys for awhile but I also feel like I don't have that much to say so this may be a short post.      This week has gone by so fast! Next Wednesday will mark one month that I have been in Maryland and I cannot believe it! I have been working hard this week - I have been making graphs and charts and have continued to format the 26 years of data that I have. Each year takes about 2 hours to finish so this process is long and tiring.      There was a large church camp here for the end of last week and the majority of this week. That means that there were 700 extra people on campus and it was kind of crazy. The other interns and I got used to eating just the 14 of us and just not really seeing anyone around but for this week it was a different story. The cafeteria was always busy but we did get more food options which was nice. The campers went home Thursday so we are back to the campus being...

     Hi guys! I had a really good weekend full of fun adventures and am so excited to tell you about them! Okay, the interns here have kind of started this thing that we like to call "Fire Fridays." Every Friday we go out to a fire pit here on campus and have a bonfire complete with smores! It is always a lot of fun. We eat, chat, sing, and dance! We weren't out too late last Friday because we had a field trip on Saturday but it was still an adventurous night! Assateague Island. Beautiful! A stamp for my family's National Park Passport.      Saturday was nice because we got to sleep in and then left for our field trip at noon. We went to Assateague Island and went seining. I really enjoyed this trip and learned a lot! If you know my father, you know that we as a family love to go to as many National Parks as we can and over the years I have developed an affinity for the parks and visitor's centers. The visitor's center at Assateague was really c...