one night (let's see it was august 9th, yes it was) i was driving home from work. i have a very long drive home from work. on the way, i couldn't help but notice the big dipper out my window. there it hung, gigantic in the western sky.


i thought.


wow, there isn't a cloud in the sky. i bet when this big, bright, shining moon goes down the sky is going to be ridiculous. there are no city lights that the stars will have to compete with. no smoggy air. yes, i thought, this will be wonderful.


so i got home around 11:30 (i work late hours, but it's not what you think. ha). and i got in bed next to my cute sister nychea. i planned on setting an alarm and waking up at three so that we could see the billions of tiny lights in the sky after the moon had gone down, but with jordan calling the next day and the diet coke i drank earlier i could see that wasn't going to happen. so i laid there for a while. then i watched a movie. then i laid there some more.


the adrenaline at the thought of hearing jordan's voice again was harder to suppress than i could have imagined. so i laid there a little longer and day dreamed (except it was night time. but i was awake, so how does that work?). then at pretty much exactly 3 am i woke nychea up. and i may or may not have made a video of our little adventure:

star gazing. from Keisha Stewart on Vimeo.

and so, the parts the video missed: laughing super loud up there on that old railroad car and hearing our voices echo off of the metal surface. being really frickin' scared to climb down because it was really frickin' dark with no moon. the cold. i thought it was august? and of course all of the "shooting stars" that we thought were just for us. seriously. there were so many. with streaming tails and different colors. i was in heaven. and "did you see that one!?" "no, i blinked!" yeah, it was like that. rapid fire.


it wasn't until the next morning i realized there was a meteor shower. man are we lucky we chose that night to look at the stars.

Friday night I held a girl in my arms as her body shook with violent sobs. This girl has seen the worst of the world. Her life has been harder than I could ever imagine, but still she is fighting. Still she has hope. And although it is frail, and sometimes falters--it never dies.

I feel so blessed to continually be able to experience the best of the world. To have so many things in my life which build my hope and make living wonderful.

Tuesday I got to go on a sister date with Nychea where we had the best sandwiches in town at Economy Drug coupled with my favorite drink of all time--chocolate coke from the old fashioned fountain. We shared pistachio ice cream, secrets, memories... And we laughed. A lot.

Thursday I got to go to Hot Creek with my family and other cute families that are such good friends. I got to swim into the "black hole" that turns a dinky natural hot spring pond into something amazing. The way it looks from above, the swirling black and blue shadows, the shapes you find in the rocks as you hold your breath and swim down trying to go as far as you can before your breath runs out and your ears hurt so bad you can't take it, and still you can't see the bottom. All of God's wonderful creations around me for me to enjoy. Bliss.

Saturday morning I woke up to the smell of desert rain outside of my window. I got to brush my little sister's hair and give her a kiss on her sweet face before she hurried out the door with my brother and grandparents. I got to drive through the falling raindrops as they came down lightly from above, and see the fog lift as the sun raised. I got to play an early-morning game of beach volleyball and feel the sand between my toes. I got to laugh with my friends. I got to drive across rural Nevada on my way to work and experience the wonder of the wide-open spaces around me all day.

And Sunday, well Sunday, I got to go to church. And I got to take the sacrament for the first time in a long time. And I got to feel Christ's loving arms wrap around me and comfort me as I reflected on my journey to get to that point. I got to hear The Spirit whisper into my heart that I was on the right track. I got to listen to my little brother play "I Know That My Redeemer Lives." And as the words silently resounded in my mind, I got to feel the squeeze of my little sister's hand as tears of gratitude and joy fell off my cheeks. 

Sunday night I got to go on an outing for work to a cave. It wasn’t one of those fancy-pants caves with lights and handrails. No, it was rough, and rugged, and dangerous. And I loved it. We took seven girls with us and as the cave went on and on and onnnnn, we got more and more muddy. Pretty soon we were covered from head to toe (literally since 4 of the girls lost their shoes and their socks in a mud filled trench inside). The cave stole shoes, a pair of glasses, and all of our dignity. There wasn’t one of us who didn’t fall flat on our face at some point. And I cut my leg on a rock. Yep. Did I say there was mud? Because there was MUD.

I love my life. And I am thankful for every part of it & for 

h o p e.

In between my Utah trips I was home for a couple days and had some serious family time. Some memories from those two days:

Listening to Nychea's stories from Youth Conference.

Painting my grandma's toe nails.

Every minute with Odessa.

And the night before I left, my adventure with Nychea and her friends.

Basically my boring Wednesday (July 13th) of cleaning, packing, and playing catch up on here turned into a really fun night! Nychea's friends Hannah and Autumn came down from Ely and brought James with them from Lund. Nychea had made us all hobo dinners earlier and so we headed to the 4-H camp pond to swim and have a fire.  When we got there, the gate was not open as we were told, so we ended up having to throw everything over the fence and then hop over it ourselves.  Well, it was more like climb over it; it was a really tall chain-link fence with barbed wire on the top (so serious). We all made it over with out any injury and quickly made our way to the water.

Swimming turned into a n a s t y moss fight, and I don't think I have laughed that hard in quite awhile. I felt a little silly hanging out with a bunch of 16 year olds, but hey, I'll take what I can get out here. ;) 

We started a fire and threw on our dinners then continued to swim while they cooked. The moon was sooo bright, casting the prettiest light on us as we all sat around the fire eating our hobo dinners...with NO forks. Haha. We truly were hobos. So sloppy.

After making some delicious s'mores we packed everything up, put the fire out, and had to climb over the fence again. This time, I came out with a small wound. Those barbs can be kinda tricky sometimes... When we were all back in the truck we headed back to Lund to drop off James and then came back to the ranch for a little scary movie. I thought, "I am pretty much over scary movies, this won't even be fun." Wrong. I ended up in the same recliner as Nychea, holding on to her for dear life. At one point we both jumped and screamed at the same time and definitely banged heads. I guess I underestimated this one, but never again. I freaking HATE scary movies. Yuck!

Favorite quotes from the night, "You can't touch my chastity boob-basket!" "'Sup wit it!?" "Ew." "He's 14!?" "ohh, you mutha uh uhh." and on and on...oh I miss being 16!