Hiking

A few weeks ago, Nate, Mandi, Dax, Jeff, Shannon, Alicia, Peter, and Will decided to go camping. They invited us to go along, but we decided instead that we would join them for a hike the next morning to Stewart Falls. It was really fun and beautiful. We all like hiking, but it was made easier by the fact we only had three little ones, two of which were easily held the whole time. The hike isn't too difficult and we had fun playing in the water. 

Cute Will!

Mandi and Porter

Nate and Dax

After we finished we went to the dry creek bed and had a nice lunch. Plus, Dax put on a show for us on the stage of the amphitheater, obviously. Dax loved having the stage (and our whole family's attention) all to himself.

Taylor: Our Favorite BYU Cheerleader

Really the reason we all went to the bowl game was to see Taylor. Taylor isn't actually my cousin, she's my cousin's daughter. But she and I are only three years apart since I'm the youngest grandchild and she is the oldest great-grandchild. So we tell people we are cousins because it's way easier to explain. She is a freshman at BYU this year and is a cheerleader extraordinaire. She might disagree, but we all think she's absolutely amazing.

We've loved having her here. All my nieces and nephews get so excited to see her at the games. For that matter all of us adults do too. A week before the cheer team went to Nationals, they had a family and friends preview so they could practice doing it under pressure. I stopped by on my way to work and got to watch. 

Tay is the cute one who is always on the top

Taylor is so darling and is so good at what she does. I was totally blown away by all of it. They work so hard and put SO much trust in each other. I felt so proud of her and just wished her parents could be there to see her. They went to Nationals and watched them there though, so it's all good. 

Random Pictures

I just like these pictures and I want them to be documented. 

We took this picture the day after Haley's birthday party. Anne
and Em were still in bed, but Haley decided we looked way too
pretty to not document it. Right after this we all climbed
 into the same bed and took a nap. It's cool.

I love this tree. It was my Mom's growing up.
Here is the Green one.

Orange

Blue

Red

Flirting

A few months back my roommates and I were discussing how we should write a book on flirting because we are such experts at it. A couple of days later, I found this: http://community.sparknotes.com/2013/02/21/100-ways-to-flirt-with-girls.

It's 100 Ways to Flirt with Girls (they 100 Ways to Flirt with Guys, too). I posted it on Haley's wall and one of my good friends from high school, Bryson, saw it. He and his roommate Will decided to make a video of it and they were kind enough to ask me to be in it (although after you watch it you might not think it is so kind. . .). 

I think it's pretty funny, but that could just be because I was in it. 

Funny Story: One of our friends from high school actually thought Kyle and I were dating. We're not. There are only two couples in the video that are actually dating. The rest of us are just flirting masters, obviously!

Thanks Bryson and Will for making this such a fun experience, even if you ended up pulling a few all-nighters to get it finished!

Best Kept Secret of BYU

My co-workers and I have decided our job is the best kept secret on campus (which means I'm totally letting it out...). I work for the Student Athlete Academic Center. While it has its moments of frustration and flat out anger, overall, it's pretty awesome. Basically we are like tutors, except instead of a specific subject, we tutor them in how to go to college. We meet with them and help them plan out their week, work on reading, test taking, and note taking strategies, help with papers, and basically any other school related subject. So, obviously, finals is insane. But otherwise it's not too stressful.

This summer has been especially fun. We are doing what is called Summer Bridge. All of the new football recruits and a few other students from other sports are required to come and take classes. Since they are all in the same classes, they get to spend a lot of time together and with us in study hall. Needless to say, we have some delightfully crazy conversations. 

One of the major perks, other than that we are all good friends with a bunch of awesome people, is the random opportunities to do fun things. Like yesterday when we got to take a tour of LaVell Edwards Stadium. 

The players weren't nearly as excited as us employees. They got to see some of it when they went on their recruiting trips. Still, we got to go some places they hadn't gone to. We started out going to the ESPN Pressbox, then went to the President's Luge (yes, that is how it is spelled). After, we hit up the Blue Zone and Visiting Team Locker Room before walking on the field to get to the Referee Locker Room, Media Room, and Home Team Locker Room. 

View from the ESPN Pressbox

Me in the President's Luge

Home Team Locker Room

So, yeah, basically my job is awesome!

(P.S. Thanks to Amy for the pictures!)

Provo Rooftop Concert

Once a month during the summer there is a free concert on the roof of one of the buildings just off Center Street. We decided to go this past weekend. It was actually a lot of fun, even though we didn't really know any of the music that was played. 

Corey, Jack, Emily Ruth, Emily Anne, Lauren, John John, Jordan, and Me

Just hanging out

The sun was bright

Jeremy

Trevor

Corey

This is Hayden's doppleganger

Lauren, Emily Anne, and Me

Jack and Emily Ruth

Emilee Anne and Jordan also were there, kind of randomly. It was so fun to see them! I had seen Emilee a couple weeks earlier at Ethan's wedding, but hadn't seen Jordan since he left on his mission!

It was such a fun atmosphere!

Old

Lately I've been feeling very old. 

It started out with this post about realizing how much my life has changed. And in the past week so much has happened to make me feel even more old. 

Last Friday I got the confirmation email from the professor I work for that the paper we've been working on for a year is officially submitted for publication! I was so excited I started tearing up. It has taken SO much hard work and stress to get that paper done. Seeing it published will just be the icing on the cake at this point.

In the past two days, two of my best friends growing up told me they are pregnant. Yes, two. I can't quite believe it, but, come October my friends are going to be the world's best moms!

In the past month, three of my best friends have come home from their missions and three more have left on theirs. Time seriously flies by. 

I got the second email from BYU reminding me about deadlines to apply for graduation. Scary.

Starting in three weeks I have to start seriously looking into graduate schools and studying for the GRE. Gulp.

I registered for my last fall semester of my undergraduate. I have quite the eclectic group of classes, let me tell you. Only one Psychology class, too. Obviously putting off graduation, eh? 

Spencer and Amy moved this week. It feels like the end of an era. Plus, spending time with all my nieces and nephews reminded me how old they are. Which means that I must be even older!

I turn 21 tomorrow.

These are adult things, people. Not little kid ones. All good things, yes (well, except that GRE thing). But still. 

I found this quote once that I've been thinking about a lot lately. 

"As you grow up, you will have your heart broken more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friends. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much and love like you've never been hurt. Because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back."

Today, as a I feel old, I sort of want to cry because time is passing too fast. I love my life and don't want everything to change so quickly. Alas, time goes on. People come in and out our lives. We go in and out of the lives of others. It's hard, but it's all okay.

Everything is as it should be.

I Am Here

I should be doing any number of things right now (like studying for my Floral Design test, figuring out code for my Stats class, reading over a paper on marital conflict for research, or reading about the trial of Joseph Smith's murders for D&C), but I don't want to do any of those things at the moment. Right now, I want to write about life.

The other day I was packing up my stuff at the end of my sociology class. As I was putting my notebook in my backpack I had the thought, "I'm in college."

Since I started college over two and a half years ago, I have no idea why that thought came into my mind right then. Obviously I'm in college. Have been for a while now. But for some reason, in that moment, it all became real to me all over again. 

Maybe it was the ordinariness of the moment that made it so extraordinary. When I started at BYU, I was so busy trying to figure out how to handle this new life that I never really took the time to marvel at it. Now, not only am I in college, but being in college is not new. Being in college is normal for me now.

College was something I had looked forward to all my life. I saw my older siblings and their friends go to college and thought everyone seemed so old and mature. Now, that is me. (And let me tell you, I'm definitely not old and mature.) I had also almost always wanted to go to BYU. Still, it was a hard a decision for me to make and a harder one to adjust to.

Because of this, I never really got to celebrate the fact that I had done it. I had gotten where I wanted to go. Everyday, I walk to campus, attend class, study, and work at a place that for years seemed like a dream land. I take classes that provide me with knowledge in all aspects of life. I write papers, do homework, and read books that I never would have imagined I could. I have relationships with my professors and have earned their respect.

I have done things that I had never even known to dream about without even realizing I was doing it. All I was trying to do was survive each day; trying to make the challenges of life easy enough to seem ordinary.

Suddenly, I am here. Doing what I love, in a place that I love. And thank goodness for that.

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