Catch Up

I figured out that I did a really bad job of this whole blogging/chronicling my life thing last semester. So, now I'm going to play catch-up. I'll do another post talking about the amazing people I spent time with a little later, but for now, here is just a few of our adventures Fall semester!

On Top of the Bell Tower

Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil

Emily, Emily, Haley, Ben Johnson, Me, Blake, and Julian

I love BYU football. Granted I would have enjoyed it a little more if they had been a little better consistently, but, what can you do?

Alexis, Emily, Haley, and Me

For Emily Cummings' birthday we went to Kneaders for dinner, where we all gave the guy fake names. When we got back, Blake, Ben, and Julian were in Emily and Haley's apartment. Blake popped out and said surprise, but the other two missed the boat a little. So then we made Emily go back out while we all hid and yelled surprise when she came in. That time was much more of a success. 

Kara, Haley, Emily, and Me on Emily's Birthday

Once she got over her surprise, she was sent on a hunt to the back room to find Julian's present for her...Cardboard Peeta! And Karen playing Hunger Games Bad Lip Reading on her phone. (We love the Hunger Games Bad Lip Reading. As in we can quote the whole thing from the beginning.)

It was basically the best present ever. Although the T-shirt with a cat (which we named Marvin) on it ran a close second (also inside joke from the HGBLR).

Julian, Emily, Peeta, Haley, Blake, Ben, Me, and Karen on Emily's Birthday

So basically we all love Ben Morgan. He's awesome. Unfortunately, he decided that he needed to go back to Baylor this semester. (Don't worry, he misses us as much as we miss him! He even skyped with all of us!)

Ben Morgan's Going Away Party

Ben is a very loved individual, as is evident by the number of people who came to his going away party. (Karen made her egg rolls for it and, well, let's just say I ate way too many of those delicious things!)

Basically Ben and Karen are the most attractive couple ever

My freshman year of college for FHE during finals week we went and stood outside the Testing Center and handed out treats to people who had just finished a test. It was a lot of fun, so I decided we should do that. I made cookies and we took a break from studying and worrying about our own lives for a few minutes to make other people's day just a little better. It was fun!

Giving out cookies at the Testing Center during Finals Week

Haley's birthday was the last day of finals in December. We went to Costa Vida for dinner (obviously) and when we got back some friends of their roommate Angela had written a note on sticky notes and stuck them all over the apartment that we had to put together to find the message. We had a bunch of people from the ward (plus a few other friends of Haley) over for treats before we got all dressed up for the midnight premiere of "The Hobbit". Yes, I dressed up. It's called being a friend. 

Emily, Haley, Me, and Angela on Haley's Birthday

Killing time by taking pictures

The movie was good, but by the time it was over I was super, duper tired. Plus, for a girl who just saw The Lord of the Rings trilogy over the summer, it was all a little much for me.

The midnight premiere of "The Hobbit" for Haley's Birthday
Trevor, Me, Haley, Emily, Emily, and Angela (not in the picture: Jack and Corey)

Blake couldn't come with us, so we had him decorate the apartment for Haley's birthday while we were gone (it became her birthday while we were at the movie). Being the engineer that he is, he rigged it so that balloons fell on her head when she opened the door. He's pretty awesome. And, he did it with a braid, which is a skill we'd been teaching him all semester. So proud.

Haley showing off Blake's braid!

One Ring to Rule Them All!

A lot of Christmas break was kind of a bust for me because I was sick about 90% of the time. But I did get some good family time in and have a few other fun things! 

We went on a group date where Haley and I set the Emilys up with our friends. It was a blast to make pizza and play some games. 

Karen went to the Philippines for a month, so before she left, we went to dinner and had a good time catching up and just hanging with each other. (She's back in the U.S. now but I still haven't seen her. March can't come soon enough!) I just love these girls so much!

Haley, Me, Karen, Emily Anne, and Emily Ruth

This picture is very us.

I saw Les Mis twice. And cried like a baby both times. That deserves a post in and of itself, though.

Jared came home from his mission! Yay!

My best friend of 18 years got married! Lizzy was such a beautiful bride and I just love her and Aaron to death! Their wedding was amazing! They both have big families, so there were tons of little kids running around and it was so fun! Plus, I got to hang out with Jake, Isaac, and Amanda Ricks for a few hours, which I haven't gotten to do in quite some time! My mom made the cake, which was a slightly stressful event since I helped, but it was fun to be able to help in such an important day!

Outside the Temple

Megan Peay, Alexis Benjamin, Amanda Ricks, Amanda Gardener, Kelsie Christensen, Kaydee Bair, and Me

I only cried twice the whole day: once when I hugged Lizzy after she came out of the temple and when Debbie read the letter Mary sent at the luncheon. I thought about how much Mary would have cried during the first dance as a couple and the Father-Daughter song though. Those always get her.

Leesh, Mary, Me, and Lizzy

Now on to Winter Semester! Whew! 

Anne came back! Hallelujah! Man, I missed that girl! Our first week back our friend Craig from our old ward asked if we would go on a double date with him and his recently returned missionary brother (mainly so I could help normalize the brother). Since we love Craig so much, we obviously couldn't say no. As part of the date we decided to build a snowman (because there has been SO MUCH SNOW this year) that is doing a handstand! It was awesome! 

Me, Eric, Anne, Craig and our AWESOME snowman!

We had to get a tad creative because the snow wasn't really sticking to itself. So we brought out a bunch of water and poured it on the snow as we packed it to basically create an ice man. Yeah, I know, I'm a genius!

Doing a Handstand!

It has been BITTERLY cold here in the land of Provo (and all of Utah, really, but I live in Provo). Seriously, I don't remember it ever being this cold! And I've lived here my whole life! (Also the air has been disgusting for months but that's beside the point.) Anyway, because of the weather the pipes keep freezing. The first week of school, a pipe in the building next to ours broke during the day. Then, one night, we woke up at 2:48 to the sound of an alarm going off. The building next to ours had a pipe break again and it set off the alarm on the outside of the building. We were super confused and wandered around our apartment for a few minutes looking for any signs of water or fire. Finding none, we stared at each other for a minute and called a couple other people in our building (they didn't answer!) before I decided to check outside. I didn't see any signs of damage but I did find a few other people outside, one of whom was on the phone with the fire department: "I don't know if this is actually an emergency, but the fire alarm is going off and no one knows how to turn it off."

Seeing that was covered, I went back into my apartment and got back in my warm bed. When the fire department got there they knocked on every door to see where the damage was. I guess they eventually found it, but we never did more than look out our plethora of windows to watch them and take a picture to document the event.

We had just decided to go back to bed when one of the people in our ward called us back (forty minutes after we had called him) saying he just woke up (clearly we are going to have to go bang on his door if there is ever a real fire) and that the fire department had to call the maintenance guy because they didn't know how to turn the alarm off. After it had been going for an hour they finally got the alarm turned off. By that time we were already asleep again though. Earplugs are a beautiful thing.

Anne, Me, and Jules

We learned that if there had been an actual fire we would obviously be the stupid people who refused to get out in time and died or had to have the firemen save them. The good news is that we all now have an answer to the question of what we would save if our house started on fire. (In case you were wondering, it is the two boxes I have of letters and my laptop.)

My first two years of school I lived in the same place. The whole time I lived there the buildings across the street were under construction. Affectionately deemed "The Great and Spacious Building" by all those who don't live there, the buildings opened for tenants this fall and have a couple restaurants on the bottom floors. One of them is the Awful Waffle. So one night we made sure we had on our "costly apparel" and hit up the Awful Waffle for some crepes. Delicious. I would definitely suggest it (even if it is on the edge of righteousness).

At Awful Waffle

So we have this awesome friend Blake. Seriously, he's the best. And we can't quite figure out why he's friends with us, because he's totally normal and, well, let's just say we aren't. Anyway, we love having nicknames for people around here. Which is why we started calling Blake by names such as Sir Percival, Blakely, and Blakey (he loves it). One time Haley called him Blakey but it sounded like she said Blanket. So now she calls him Blanket. So naturally for his birthday we had to make him a blanket!

A blanket for Blanket!

He didn't get it at first, but once he did he thought we were funny. I insisted on the zebra print because I thought it was a good illustration of our relationship with Blake: it makes him slightly uncomfortable, but deep down he loves it. It was basically the perfect gift. We also made him his favorite food (tacos) and ate his favorite dessert (banana cream pie). The pie was still a little frozen, so we ended up just each grabbing a spoon and all eating it out of the pan and it tasted a little like ice cream. 

Singing to Blake

Mostly I just love the picture below. It is the perfect illustration of our lives: the Emilys laughing hysterically and Blake rolling his eyes at how weird we are.

Typical

Below is the picture of the night we decided to stuff a bunch of people onto a small couch. Why? I still have no idea. Also, it was the night we played Fruit Ninja on the Kinect. So awesome! Apparently I get really in to such things. Also I stick my tongue out while I do it. Who knew?

Stuffing a lot of people on a small couch