wednesday, wednesday, wednesday!

I bet you read the title in an announcer's voice. It's okay to admit it. This is a no judgement zone.

Is anyone else sick of snow yet? I think it's dandy until around mid January. After that, it's just a bother. Not to mention it's way to cold. Isn't it close to summer yet? Well, in the states. I'm sure the weather is great over in Australia right about now. Anyone up for a little winter vacation?

"Life is like a bicycle. In order to keep your balance, you must keep moving." -Albert Einstein

photo copyright jessikalloyd photography

just another manic monday

Hello there!
It's Monday. Which would normally be just an okay day for me, except there was something waiting for me in my P.O. box when I came back from a long day of ever so lovely college classes. Any guesses?? I'll give you a hint. Actually, I'll just tell you because I was (and still am) super excited about it. It was a letter from my best friend who is serving an LDS mission in Oregon. I always get excited when I get letters, but today was different. I've been stressing a lot over a few things, and today wasn't the best of days. So when I opened my P.O. box not expecting to find anything, and found a letter, that frown turned upside down. It is amazing to know that God knows exactly when we need a little pick-me-up, and mine was in the form of a letter from my best friend. And then I read the letter and all of the stress I was feeling seemed to disappear for a moment. I love that I can always rely on those letters to lift me up and make my day, and week, better than they were without them. I am ever so grateful that I have such amazing friends who know exactly what I need to hear and when I need to hear it.

That's all I really have for today.

photo copyright jessikalloyd photography

i'm back

I really need to be better at keeping this updated :p Sometimes it's just hard to remember, but I am going to try my best to be better. The thought occurred to me while I was watching Julie and Julia about a week ago, does anyone actually read my blog? Or am I just posting things to the internet just because? I hope people read this. I know it's been kind of a journal for me, but I am going to start changing things up. I am going to try my very best to post something everyday. Maybe something interesting I learned, or something funny I heard/saw. I'm still going to talk a little about my life and my adventures as a poor college kid and other important or interesting things that happen, but this is no longer going to be an online journal, I have a very nice one that is longing to be written in. Since the name of my blog is A Photo A Day, I will post a photo of the day everyday (or everyday I make a post) until I run out of photos. (If that point ever occurs, I will take some more.) Every Wednesday will be the day I post a quote. It may be inspirational, it may be funny, but it will be posted. I may or may not assign other things to the other days of the week, stay tuned. But, there are going to be some changes around here :)

We have been doing a pinhole photography project in my intermediate photography class. It blows my mind how you can make a working camera out of almost anything. I made mine out of a venti sized Starbucks cup. I've gotten some fantastic photos so far. I had to duck tape the crap out of the outside and spray paint the inside with black paint (around 4 layers), but it works really well. I am very proud of my little coffee cup camera :)

So, interesting thing saw on the internet somewhere. I saw that you could make a grilled cheese sandwich in a toaster set on it's side. Of course I had to try it. And it just so happened that when I came back to school after Christmas break, my dad bought me a toaster. Perfect :) My roommate and I decided to give it a try. It worked rather well in my opinion. Mine got a little burnt, but no biggie. I think I might try making an open faced sandwich next time and use Velveeta instead :) I think the reason mine burned was that my bread was thicker and shoving 2 slices in a slot made for one was a bit much for  my little toaster.  

Well, that's all I really have time for today. I've got a bunch of Web Design homework to attend to.

Since today happens to be Wednesday, I shall start the quote posting.

"Don't waste your minutes, life waits for no one." - Unknown

Copyright Jessikalloyd Photography

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