my summer adventures thus far :)

So I know that I said I would try to be a better blogger, and so far, I seem to have been failing. Life's crazy and sometimes there just isn't enough time.

I figure I can at least stay up on what I'm up to this summer.

First things first, I sent my best friend away on his mission to Oregon. I'm gonna miss that kid like crazy, but I know he's doing great things :)

I am working for the summer as a graphic designer for a company called Viral Events. We put on the Run or Dye color 5k events across the country. I LOVE working here. Not only am I working in the field that I am studying, I also get to travel to various states to help work at the events. I've only been to 2 events so far, but am booked for 4 more next month. The first event I went to was Reno, NV. That was super fun.  The car ride there was probably the most enjoyable car ride I've ever had. We stopped at the West Salt Flats on the way, and I snapped a few pics. I had never been to the Salt Flats before, so it was a cool new place for me.

After the race on Saturday, my family snatched me up and we went on a week long vacation in Trinidad, CA and the Redwood forest    ( after we stayed a couple days at Lake Tahoe ).  The hotel we stayed at in Tahoe was right on the lakefront, so we spent some time on the beach :) It was slightly colder than I would have expected, but not nearly as cold as Trinidad.  Northern Cali is a LOT colder than I would have liked. In my mind, when I think of Cali, I think of Southern Cali with warm sand and sun and just all around warmth. I imagine that the Northern California coast looks a lot like the Oregon coast. Very green and foggy.  But it was very very pretty.
We also had the chance to explore Eureka, CA. So many Victorian style homes! All so pretty.
And I found an old phone box and just had to take a picture in front of it. So many things to love about phone boxes. Too bad it wasn't blue..... :)


I had the amazing opportunity to work the San Fransisco race over the 4th of July weekend. I'd never been to San Fran, so it was super exciting to be there and see everything. Since Thursday was the 4th of July, we only did packet pickup till 1, so we had time to go out and see the city we went and saw the Golden Gate bridge, walked around the Piers and watched fireworks by the bay.

Our event was at Candlestick Park, where the San Fran 49ers play. And the drive there was past one of the bays. The early mornings were so worth it just for the view :)
I was put on store duty the second day of packet pickup, and my work attire was.... well.... a little strange. But it was the best! How many people get to play dress up and get paid for it? :)

That's not the last of my events though. I'm going to Atlanta, GA on 8/3, Cleveland, OH on 8/10, Abilene, TX on 8/17 and Chattanooga, TN on 8/24. August is going to be a super busy month. Oh, and I move back down to Cedar for school 8/25, and school starts the 26th. So I'll be on my feet a LOT, but it will be worth it :)

Yesterday, I went to my long time friend's farewell. Kels and I have been friends for 16 years now. She's going to be leaving to Texas here in a few days. I am so glad we've been friends since we were 3. She's been such an amazing example in my life and she will be AMAZING in the mission field.



Well, I will try my hardest to stay updated, but no promises.

i've been way to lazy with this....

I have GOT to get better at doing this more often. It's been THREE months since my last post..... oops. Anywhoo, to continue with my adventures.... :)

Well, to finish off with the month of love (aka February), not too many super exciting things happened. There were 3 earthquakes on the 7th, I guess that was pretty exciting. The biggest one was like a 3.5 or something like that. I  went to see SUU's production of Chigago the musical with my roomies :) That was super fun :) My family sent me a Valentines box because they love me :) There was another institute formal on the 15th, but unfortunately for me, it was boys choice, so I didn't go. :( But my family DID come all the way to Cedar for my birthday! I have the bestest family EVER! They even brought the dog :p We went swimming at the hotel, and then went to Sizzler for dinner. And my roommates "heart attacked" my room with zebra printed hearts, and made me a "college student birthday trifle", which consisted of crumbled up cake, frosting globs, chocolate syrup and cool whip. Pretty good day if I do say so myself. I went home the weekend of the 23rd for my lovely friend Brady's mission farewell. It was also his birthday the 23rd, so there was a group of us that went and hung out. It was me, Brady, Stephen, Katelyn, Shannon (Katelyn's roommate), and Michael (Stephen's brother). We went to Peaks in Provo to ice skate, but the rinks were rented out to a singles ward down there, and it just so happened that a friend of Katelyn's was there, so we crashed their activity. :) It was super fun!! We played broom ball. Now THAT is a brutal sport, especially when played with a singles ward :P haha and Michael was flippin HILARIOUS! Just sayin.... :)

And on to this month...... yeah I've been waaaayy too lazy :P The RHA ( Resident Hall Association) held a black light dance. That was fun :) Corlissa and I had a little too much fun with highlighters.... :) I went to see Les Mis for free because the school was showing it for a student activity. I freaking love that movie!! Spring break was fantastic ;) I went to the temple on Wednesday with Annekke, Matt and Katie Jones. It was so great to be there. I needed it a lot. Then last night, I went to Skyler's ( Austin's younger brother) house to watch him open his mission call. Canada Vancouver, and he leaves on his birthday!! Super cool. Friday was just a party plus some. I'm not going to go into detail but I'll just say that I had fun hanging out with friends till 4 in the morning :)  Annekke got me some freaking cool socks. And Sunday was a friend of mine's farewell. The most exciting thing that happened recently was my bestest friend in the whole world, Austin, opened his mission call last night. Eugene Oregon. He leaves ten days before Skyler does. I was freaking out so bad I was shaking. And this Saturday is the Holi Festival of Colors so that should be fun :)

one month down, 11 to go... and the superbowl

Well, nothing extremely interesting has happened since I last posted, but I figured I would post something just so I am caught up. Ummm, let us start with the fact that some more of my good friends made the amazingly awesome decision to serve the Lord for two years. My dear friends Jared and Nick had their farewells on the 20th, but I was unable to attend because transportation is kind of hard to find down here. There were apparently at least 2 more farewells that day too. It is so good to see so many young men and women who are so willing to go out and serve for two years :) It is especially good when it's people that you know and have grown up with that you know will be able to bring the Gospel into the lives of so many people. 
Another thing that happened since I last posted was that I somehow contracted the dreaded pink-eye. I guess it was going around and I was just the unlucky one who happened to get it. I actually had it since the day that we came back to SUU. It's a long story, but I suppose I can just let the world know that sometimes I don't think before I do things :P It started the night we got back when I guess I forgot to take out my contacts, and I woke up the next morning to find that my eyes had the oh so lovely symptoms of pink eye. I let it be thinking that it would get better on it's own, and it was, until I would occasionally put my contacts back in not realizing the bacteria would still be on them. Then it got to the point where it was basically completely gone, and what did I do? I put the same contacts back in. Yeah, sometimes I just don't think. So I ended up having my lovely friend Stephen take me over to the insta-care and the doc called in a prescription for eye drops, and now it is all gone, and I threw away the infected contacts and the case and started fresh :P Let's just say that I learned that if I ever get an infection in my eye again, I should probably throw out the contacts unless I never want it to get better. 
The last thing that happened during the month of January was that I was able to go home for the weekend of the 26th and attend Keegan's farewell talk. It was really good. And yet another friend heads out to preach the word of God. 
And I know that February just started, but I figured I might as well post about the goings on so far. I got to Skype my lovely friend Austin that I haven't seen since Christmas break. It was quite lovely to chat with him "face to face". And as you may or may not know, today was the 47th Superbowl. The Boston Ravens and the San Fransisco 49ers. I was rooting for the Niners, but alas, the Ravens won. I honestly think it was because the refs didn't call stuff that should of been called on the Ravens. Holy smokes those guys did not like to play nice. But life goes on, and now I'm just sitting here with my cup of tea blogging so that the whole world can know my life as a SUU Thunderbird :)

new year, new semester

Well, it's time to start spring semester. Oooh boy :) So far it has been tons of fun :) Kicked off the new semester on Sunday by going out to dinner at Applebees for the first time with my peeps MJ and Kevin. That was tons of fun, and super yummy :) Monday, the new semester started. Yay..... :p It's actually not that bad for me. I don't have very hard classes, well they aren't that hard so far :p I've got two actual art classes, an art theory class, math, institute, and a art lecture and a computer class that I would never take if it wasn't required for graduation :p The only bad thing so far is that on Monday and Wednesday I don't get time to eat lunch until about 3 in the afternoon. But besides that, the semester seems to be going good :) 

I went to the first boys basketball game of the year against Weber State on Thursdsay. I totally skipped my art lecture class to go, but it wasn't much of a hard decision for me :P And even though we lost the game, ( because the refs are stupid ) I did get a free "Rivalry Red" t-shirt that was made just for that game. Come to think of it, that was the first non high school basketball game I had ever attended :P 

We had a casino night as part of the welcome week for spring semester on Friday. It was super fun. And just like last semester, I wore another of Annekke's dresses :P  And since I have no clue how to gamble or any of that stuff, I gave my chips to Kevin :P But somehow Matt, who has never gambled in his life either, managed to win the I-pad mini in the raffle at the end. Beginners luck I say. :p Oh and did I mention that Kevin wore basically the best shirt ever?? It's hard to see in the picture, but it has fish on it :) And the bow tie makes the whole thing just that much more awesome :)

And as part of the welcome week, they also had a "what suits you" dance on Saturday. I guess the DJ that was there is some super well known guy, DJ Marcus Wing. I've never heard any of his stuff until then, but it was pretty good stuff. I went all out 80's, but that shouldn't surprise anyone :p Annekke went in "hairspray" 60's and Corlissa was a 60's rocker chick.  It was fun, but after about an hour, none of us could hear, so we came back home. 

I saw the most scarring movie of my life on Sunday. A bunch of friends were going because MJ works at the theater and she got us free tickets, so I said 'what the hay' and went. The movie of choice? The Haunted House. Little did I know until about half way through the movie that it was rated R, and for reasons that it should be. MJ and I were just looking at the floor during about a third of the movie because what was on screen wasn't what we expected at all. My reccomendation? NEVER ever go see it. Although it does have it's funny parts, it isn't worth it. Never again......

On a happier note, a bunch of us had a movie night/ attempted all nighter last night :) We got through Thor, She's the Man, and Salt before the last of us fell asleep at around 3:30. Before you think that three movies wasn't enough, we had breaks in between too, so don't judge :)  Plus MJ made the empty side of her room into a mini theater with a couch, made out of the unused bed, and a $15 t.v. we bought at D.I. with a DVD player :) And, yes, I am wearing my footies :) Be jealous :p 

I am going to try and make blogging a weekly/biweekly thing instead of once every 4 months like it has been, so my posts aren't novels :P

survival of a college freshman

Well, December was just peachy :) My school held a "Yule Ball" and it was just fantastic :) Corlissa moved into our room (taking up Ashley's empty spot), Institute held a Christmas/Closing social dance, I survived my first college finals, went home for Christmas break, watched my best friend's band play on New Years, and just had a blast :)    
          
The Yule Ball was just fabulous! Here at SUU, we have a conference center that looks just like the Great Hall from Harry Potter, so the RHA decided to hold a Yule Ball. Oh my, it was quite a party :) I didn't get there till a little later, but I heard that they had a live snake that people were taking pictures with. I wish I was ready to be there when it started :P But it was still super fun even though I was about an hour late.                                    

The institute closing Christmas social was pretty fantastic too :) Me and Corlissa walked to it ( which by the way, was FREEZING cold ). There was a dance from about 9 to 11, with a Christmas photo booth and soup, then we all walked across the street to the historic theater on Main, and watched movies. There were two options, Elf and Arthur Christmas. We obviously chose Elf, because it is one of the BEST Christmas movies ever made. That got done around 1 a.m., and Corlissa and I walked back to the dorm. It felt like I was walking through a freezer all the way home :P And it was kinda, well, really creepy. Walking home at 1 in the morning isn't exactly the most comforting thing in the world, especially in a city where you're not used to the streets and such. But we made it back in one piece :p

I survived my first semester of college, through all the finals, and didn't even gain the freshman 15 :P I didn't have too many finals, so it wasn't that bad for me. I had an art final, a history final, and a math final. One of the great things about being an art major is that most of your finals are showing your portfolio and such things like that. But I made it to Christmas break :) 


Oh Christmas break, the break that I was waiting for all semester :P The adventures, and non-adventures I went on alone, and with my peeps :)
I finally got to see my bestie Austin.
Oh how I missed that boy. We went to see Wreck it Ralph, along with my lovely sister Heidi. Oh that was fun :) That movie is quite good :)

Christmas was great :) I got a lot of zebra stuff :P But that's because my parents know me oh so well. I got some yellow skinny jeans, some shirts, zebra footie pajamas, a mug that looks just like a camera lens, some perfume, a pea-coat, a zebra bowl and glass, and a headband and necklace made by my sisters. And I just loved being able to be with my family for the three weeks I was home :) 

I was so happy that I was able to make it down to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square :) Austin, Amelia, Heidi, Brandon, and I all took a lovely trip to SLC on the Sunday before they took all the lights down :) It was super cold, and we almost got locked in at the parking garage that took us forever to find, but it was so much fun :)

I was craving mango salsa for the longest time, but Costco requires a card to buy anything and Walmart is stupid and doesn't sell it, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and make some myself :) It was pretty tasty for a first attempt if I do say so myself :) 



 
I spent New Years with some good friends in Provo :) Conner, Shay, and Bonne Nuit. Nothing gets better :) It was a pretty good New Years, even though I still haven't gotten that New Years kiss ;P 

2012 was peachy, but I hope that 2013 has swedishlyafrotastimagical things in store for me :)