Party People!

It was Megans birthday this week, so Shai surprised her with a party! Shai was a wonderful host and made it such a fun event! Megan doesn't live with us, but man, wouldn't it be fun to have her around?! Happy birthday Megan!

The crew!

The Dreaded

Have I mentioned I HATE moving?! If not, here you go. I HATE MOVING! I don't hate or even strongly dislike many things, but this is definitely one of them.

Finals Anyone?

This is what I do when I'm fed-up with finals. I draw and paint.

Done using Dollar Store paint set. Mixed colors on my hand.

I don't know if this tree exists, but here it is.

Easter

Catrina and I had a wonderful day! We first had dinner with the Jacobs at their home. We had a delicious meal, followed by a wonderful dessert. Sister Jacobs was SO kind and considerate as she had prepared individual Easter baskets for me and Catrina to take home. It really did feel like we were at home.

Following our visit, dinner, and dessert, Catrina and I went home. Later that night we decided to make apple cake. It was so fun to spend a Sunday afternoon/evening with Catrina. She is so much fun and is a wonderful cook. After baking our cake, we decorated eggs. Our Easter was complete: time with family, an Easter basket, delicious food, a Sunday nap, and the dying of Easter eggs. What could be better?

I just love this girl!
Finished product.

Night at the Oscars

Our ward decided that for our individual FHe activities, we would create a video. The theme was "super heroes". The video we made was a little confusing, but I think overall, turned out well. Kortni was one of the super heroes. I was an indian statue and a bad guy. Type cast? I'll leave that to you. :) Following the completion of our videos, our ward had a "Night at the Oscars" where we all dressed in our best to watch all the films and receive awards. Our video did not win, but we were okay with it. :) It was fun to glam up with my roomies. We need that every now and then, don't we?

Catrina: Karl G. Maeser statue

Kortni: super hero

KaRynn: [naked] indian statue

Just missing one roommate..

Oh Edward. What would we do without you?!

I love having cousins in my ward!

Me, Trevor, Mike

Catrina, Trevor, me

You gotta love John. :)

Who Am I?

Convincing, yes?

Bloody Sunday

Have you ever had a friend ask you if they could draw your blood; just to practice?

I have!

The Mama!

My mom came to visit this weekend! It was wonderful to have her here. While she was here, she and I went to the General Young Women's broadcast in Salt Lake. She, Bryan, Catrina, and I, also went to a BYU Rugby game. It was SO fun! I love watching sports with her because she and I are real intense athletes. :) I love having her around. I love California and love that my family is still there, but man, I wish my family lived closer. I miss them!

Salt Lake with the Mama!

Bryan and Catrina. Did I mention it was FREEZING!! Not cold, FREEZING!!!

"Four Eyes"

All my life I had thought I would have perfect vision and hearing. I mean, who doesn't want to believe their sight and hearing would remain perfect their whole life?! Alas...it was my time. :)

So I was having a harder time reading the chalkboard in my Chem 105 class, so I went to an optometrist. That's where I received the bad news. I needed glasses. My vision is not horrible, but as a measure to maintain the good vision I have now, I needed glasses. All my life I have secretly wanted to have glasses, but never wanted to NEED them. I could have gone with fake ones. :) Anyways, here they are. After spending time choosing them with Kortni and Catrina, these are what we chose.

Food, Food, Food

So Bryan and I cook meals four times a week for each other. I cook Mondays and Tuesdays and he cooks Wednesdays and Thursdays. I have really learned to love this. It is a huge time commitment though, depending on what I am making. I can spend from 1-2 hours working on a meals. (A HUGE thank you to all moms who don't have the effort they put forth acknowledged or appreciated).

Bryan keeps telling me I have the "feed the missionaries syndrome" where I always make too much. I just worry that people won't have enough. I never want anyone to feel like they can't eat as much. SO, I make, according to Bryan, "enough to feed a family". Because of my "syndrome" and the excess food which I produce, we have been having people over for dinner recently. Whether my roommates join us, his roommates join us or his/my/our friends, it has been a lot of fun.

Most recently we had my friends Erik and Adam over for a meal. Erik had wanted a Mexican dish, so I made Cafe Rio. It turned out to be pretty good. I was really glad. I have realized recently that I have been making meals where I have never made the dish before. Kind of risky and dangerous.

Anyways, here are some pictures from our meal on Monday. Adam had mentioned how we were all kind of color coordinated and then Erik suggested we take a picture.

This was our attempt to take a picture with the timer set. It WOULD have worked if Erik had not been a little punk.

I then realized my roommate was home, so we asked her to take it of us. CHEESE.

Up the Peak

Over the Memorial Day weekend, my cute roommates and I decided to go snowshoeing. None of us had even been before, so we decided to rent some shoes and head out. Did we know what we were doing? No. But it turned out to be a TON of fun.

My cute roommates Trina and Kortni on our way to Squaw Peak.

Once we got there, we first started walking in just our tennis shoes because we didn't feel like we really needed the shoes yet. As we continued walking up this path area, we saw this little "turn off" area where we felt like we could go and have it be a little more intense. As we looked further up, we didn't think it would challenge us enough, so we continued on. As we continued up, there was a guy walking down this trail area. He told us how we probably wouldn't be needing our shoes because the snow was so compact. HOWEVER, my roommates and I had already decided to take a more "advanced" track...

STRAIGHT UP!

So, up we went. Kortni started out leading the way...

Our ascent...

My turn being "the fearless leader"!

We had to pull on trees to get through certain areas. This one area, was little a mini forest of dead trees. The scary thing about snowshoeing up a mountain is you never know what's under you... Kind of a weird thought as you are throwing your weight around to make it up.

A view from the [almost] top.

So when we finally got to our "destination", we started hearing gun shots. Right next to where we started our climb, we passed an area marked "Provo Gun and Rifle Range". However, when we heard the gun shots, it didn't sound like they were coming from the range next to us. We looked over the ledge and saw this man just free shooting. We then looked closer and realized he was shooting EXACTLY up the "trail" we were considering going up before. We then started laughing and saying how "WE COULD HAVE DIED!" But really, there would have been no way he would have seen us. We seriously could have been shot! Haha! What a fun story that would have been!

On our descent down..we took a different way. We decided to explore a little.

We found this road/trail on our way down. It was such a fun day!

When we finally got down to the bottom, we actually met and talked with the man who was shooting. He was CRAZY! It was so funny. My roommate asked him how he was doing and what he was doing there. He wanted to reassure us and make it VERY clear that it was still the right of an American to carry a gun. (We weren't arguing... :) We then asked what he was shooting and he told us he was looking for a moose that he had seen signs of. (That's all well and good, but he was NOT shooting in an area where shooting was/is permitted. WE COULD HAVE DIED!) Haha. It was quite the memorable day.

Unforgiving

Before I came to BYU, my dad had mentioned how winter can be nasty because of the snow and ice. He would also say how ice is so unforgiving. It just hurts. How right he is...

Recently I was kind of running out of my house dancing and singing. I was on my way to jump in the car to head to a family intramural team's soccer game. Try to visualize... I was singing and dancing with my arms up above my head. I went out my back door, down the steps of the porch, the car was insight (about 10 feet away), mid-song, I go down! I mean BAD! My legs came out from under me-- I was flat on the asphalt. The first thing that came to my mind, was that really hurt and HOW did I fall?! I looked back and say this TINY little patch of ice. Recently, here in UT the snow had been melting a little. So this tiny little spot of ice was the remains of what had melted off of our roof earlier that day. The rest of the night, my knee killed. I am not one big on pain, but I could not believe how much my knee hurt. My hands and one of my knees were cut, but they weren't what hurt. I had a feeling my knee would have a bruise the following day.

Less than 24 hours later...

My brother's called me weaksauce. I wasn't even complaining about the bruise and they dished that out...rude... :)

It has now been a little over 3 days...

You should know that I LOVE, I mean, LOVE bruises! Last night when I was at the gym, I felt so hardcore for having this gnarly bruise on my leg. :) It's too bad it's not a very good story. :)

Fire Hazard!

So my roommate Kortni brought back a cute little "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree for us when she got back from Thanksgiving break. However, this cute, little tree is more like a death tree. I have never felt a tree more sharp and pokey. It kills when you touch it! It really is painful, even if you barely touches you.

It is now far past Christmas and the tree is mostly dead. My cousin Alan saw and said how it is a major fire hazard. We (the apartment) all knew that, but didn't really think about it. We all wanted to get rid of it, but it was just a matter of doing it.

This past Monday, Kortni took the task upon herself and took the tree out. BEFORE she took it out, she put on layers! She put on thick gloves, her huge jacket (she never wears it--it's kind of a joke), and her boots. She also attempted to cover the tree with a garbage bag. Attempt is the key word. :) We are all grateful to be rid of the tree, but even though we vacuumed, we keep finding little remnants of the tree around--mainly because we step on them. Ouch!