Summer Lovin

Well...I'm back in Provo. Actually I have been for like a month, I just haven't written on here in a while. My new ward is pretty cool. It's a very unusual ward, though from my experiences with other student wards. It seems like everyone in the ward is dating/engaged to someone else in the ward. Usually people end up dating random people like kids in classes and friends of friends and once in a while people in their ward. Two of my roommates are engaged and the third is dating someone, so that's interesting. They're really great girls! My apartment is pretty sweet. Not having a dishwasher isn't as bad as I thought it would be either. One of my (Fall/Winter) roommates, Krislyn,  is coming out to visit this weekend!!! I'm pumped.

Saturday night I finally went to see Harry Potter. (I was too slow getting tickets for the midnight showing. :(  ) It was great! At least the part that I saw...Just as Harry was getting Snape's memories some lights started flashing in the theater and a voice cam eover the intercom telling us to evacuate the building. We came to find out that some guy was upstairs in the building with a lighter lighting something on fire and threatening to blow the place up. I don't think any of us really believed it was going to happen since the employees had to keep telling us to move back further in the parking lot. A buch of police and firemen came, but after about 20 minutes of waiting around outside for something to happen, we left. And that's why I still haven't seen HP...but I'm okay with it lasting a little longer. Afterall, this is my childhood. What else do we have ot look forward to in the Wizarding World of HP?

Last night was bogo night (buy on get one free) at Baskin Robbins. It's every tuesday, so freshman year we used to call it tradition tuesday and go *every tuesday. And now that I live so close the kids in the ward like to go a lot. It was rather delicious, esp for being buy on get one, but there are other places I like better.

I just bought my ticket for the midnight showing of Captain America. I'm going with some comic book buffs, so this will be interesting....



*I skipped some due to schoolwork and money...

coding, coding, coding

So Lauren and I have just been coding all day everyday.

Okay, not really. We do three or four tapes in the morning, eat lunch, go lay outside and read, come back in and code three or four more tapes and then go to whatever we're doing that evening. Which this week has been a lot of institute stuff.

On Monday we volunteered at the Central Missouri Food Bank for the ward FHE. We're pretty much professional packers now. Then we went to our friend's and watched Clue. I had never seen it before. It's pretty funny. I can't believe I had never seen it before. I would recommend it.
Tuesday we went to Institute and talked about religion and politics, though there wasn't too much argumentation going on in the class...unfortunately.
Last night we went and helped make pinatas and candy bags with Mizzou's LDSSA for the pediatric unit at the hospital here. I may or may not have eaten two mini reeses. They are a weakness of mine.

Tonight we are going to watch Thor, I'll let you know how it is.

Foosball and Leo's

This weekend has been pretty good so far. Last night we went to a student ward activity that involved food (namely strawberries) and human foosball! For those lacking in the creativity department, human foosball is when you get a bunch of long pvc pipes (or duct tape some shorter ones together) and set them up like the rows in a foosball table. Everyone picks a row to stand in and just has to keep their hands on the pole when they kick the soccer ball. Pretty much Lauren, Mariah, and I kicked butt. Just kidding we weren't even all on the same team most of the time, but when we were all on the same bar we were like a brick wall!...

Today Lauren and I went to Mustard Seed to get some sseko sandals. We became enamored of them when we went to Mustard Seed last week and have been thinking about buying them this whole time, but couldn't decide because they're kind of expensive, but so awesome. Obviously we decided to buy them. You just buy the sole to the sandals and then the straps are interchangeable and you can tie them however you want since there are five spots the straps can go into the shoes.

They go towards helping some women in Uganda help fund their higher education, which is awesome. And...you can wear them with skirts and not get blisters! I'm excited about this since I will probably be mostly wearing skirts when I get back to Provo and am working...
We also went to Leo's. It's this super random shop in the middle of Downtown como. It's upstairs from Dryer's and just has random used stuff. It was so awesome. It's one of those places that you think is super cool, but you also really want to wash your hands while/after you're there. Lauren got a sweet hat and some rings and I got a sweet ring for like 3 bucks. Excellent. That store will be graced with our presence again.
We also had free coupons for Hot Box cookies. It was pretty good, but you can tell that they mostly make their money from lazy college student cravings rather than the excellence of their cookies.

Lauren and I have started making a wicked sweet video. We have so many random and awesome visions for it. Look forward to it. It will blow your freaking mind.

Home, Sweet Home

Just had a two day drive with my awesome roommate, Lauren. We actually had a blast on the 20 hour drive. We sang as loudly as possible to some sweet jams, yelled at Nebraska, ate delicious beef jerky, "raced" a car full of obnoxious guys, screamed to stay awake, hot tubbed at the hotel and watched an awesome move in the hotel room. It was insane, we really need to find out the title of it...
Easter was great and mom made my favorite dessert. What a doll. Tomorrow we start work. Yummy. I already miss my peeps from school, but it won't be too long til I see most of them, and I can survive until August for the others.  :)

I was going through some pictures today to figure out a picture I want on my debit. And I found this beauty from the end of freshman year:

we may or may not have gone wading in the JFSB courtyard fountain. It was awesome and the faces in this...classic. Marsh's might be my fav, but I can't quite decide...

He's Just Not...

...That Into You. I'm reading it right now. It's pretty good. Probably every girl should read it. I think that it should be way more acceptable for girls to just be able to say to our friends "maybe he's just not that into you." Sometimes I do, but I generally get expressions of pure shock. You can't say that! I think the real problem, though, is that we see our girl friends as so cool and so awesome that we can't wrap our minds around the fact that a guy might not be interested in them. "But ------- is so funny/smart/gorgeous/athletic/fun/great, how could he not want to ask her out?!" But sometimes he doesn't. Quit letting your friend wait around for him. Punch her. It might help.
I don't think that much of the book has applied to me yet, but maybe it will help in future dating endeavors and definitely in talking to my girl friends. Although this is what I am definitely going to have them read first. Breakups are the worst to get your friends through. When they're on a self-destructive path, they will eventually realize it themselves no matter how many times you told them. The article also has some relationship advice, ladies.

Now I just need to read The Gift of Fear...

...But finals are already rearing their ugly head. Remember that picture that people used to put on their facebooks around this time in high school? The one with the grim reaper holding the little boys hand and it said: "Let's Go Take the AP Exams." Someone should make one for finals. At least I only have four finals!!! :)

A Beautiful Week

I have been so busy lately! Our friend John was in town visiting for the weekend, so Monday night we went to SLC and had delicious Greek food and watched a laser show in the Imax there. Then we went to a yummy frozen yogurt place. (They're cake batter flavor was spectacular.)
Of course we played around on the galaxy/solar system stuff first:

 Yeah, we're on Mars.

Inspecting footprints on the moon with our friend in the background.

Thursday night we had a way fun big group date (girls ask guys). We played soccer for a while out in the cold and rain. We may have lost, but my team was awesome! Just saying...I think everyone had a lot of fun. They didn't want to go until it got pretty dark. Finally we went and got frozen yogurt (seeing a pattern?) Mmmmmm....

The whole group minus Tracie and Peter, party poopers. You should have seen us trying to take this picture, though. We put the camera on the TV with the timer and it kept falling off...

Last night I went to a "bonfire." The weather was pretty crappy, so we ended up grilling hot dogs outside my friend's apartment complex. Then we went inside and told a 'scary' story and made s'mores by roasting marshmallows over tea candles. It was really fun! Some of his friends reminded me of my roommates, which amused me.

And a couple pictures from conference at Brady's and Temple Square:

We're pretty awesome. I know. Speaking of awesome, Hannah and I went on a run in the snow this morning and then went swimming outside at Glenhood (okay, the pool is heated, but still pretty fun). Then we got some lunch at the coffee pod, it was good, but not too filling. The atmosphere was fun, though. There were a lot of hippies. I think it will become Hannah's new thing. She'll probably put our pics up in a few months...or years...

Cecil!

Conference weekend has been great! Saturday morning I lazed around with the roommates watching conference on TV. But right after the first session, Lauren and I jumped in the car to head to Salt Lake for the PM session since I had two tickets. We found parking pretty easily, which surprised me and meant that we had time to visit with a friend who works in the ticket office. My aunt was in town for the weekend with my cousin and her friend, so they saved us seats (we were in the balcony). Of course the talks were fantastic! And it was exciting when Cecil gt up since he's my homeboy. There was a lot of whispering in our section when he stood up. The BYU-I choir was great, but I wish we had been there for MoTab (don't worry, I've been to conference before, so I've seen them, but it's always nice.) I kept looking at the spots we had last year covetously, though. We were in the fifth row last year! But anyway, then our group went to Crown Burger, known for their cheeseburgers with pastrami and fantastic fry sauce. It lived up to it's name. Mmmmmmm! Walking around temple square rounded up the GC Saturday. And when we got home we got to visit with our friend from last semester who moved to Texas, but is in town visiting!

Today we continued our somewhat new semi-annual tradition of going to our friend's parents house for conference. His parents and family are fantastic and fun (and make amazing food!) His grandparents especially are characters. We also went in footie pajamas (I borrowed from Krislyn since I don't yet own any :(  ) And took some awesome pictures. They will be forthcoming....

Maybe I should demonstrate that I was actually educated from conference...I got:

GET MARRIED!

Yeah, it felt like BYU firesides all over the place (Especially Elder Scott's since he told mostly the same stories as our fireside a few months ago.)

So pretty much a fantastic weekend.

P.S. I went rock climbing on Friday! But alas,  I forgot my camera. It was actually kind of scary at first, but way fun.