Count down to Christmas break...

I can't believe that this semester is already coming to a close. Finals are officially here, kinda scary but I feel pretty prepared. I can't decide if being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, Christmas break, is making it easier or more difficult. But in order to hang in there a little bit longer I did deck out our apartment with some fun decorations. I brought up my mini Christmas tree from home along with some other decorations, and I downloaded about 10 CDs of Christmas music on to my computer so it almost always playing. Tis the season, I love Christmas and I can't wait to be home to spend it with family! :)

First Presidency Christmas Devotional

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend the First Presidency Christmas Devotional at the General Conference center. I'd signed up a few weeks ago for tickets online and was lucky enough to be chosen through their random lottery selection. So on Sunday after church, April, Brock, Andrew, and I headed down to Salt Lake. We got seated just in time, and boy did we have great seats, on the floor in the middle. Once again, being the presence of the Prophet was an amazing feeling. That moment when everything goes quite and we all stand up together as he enters the room just never gets old. All three talks were fantastic. I liked Pres. Uchtdorf's comparisons to the Grinch :) and his reminder of what we should be focusing on during the Christmas season:
1. Rejoicing in the birth of our Savior
2. Pondering his influence in our lives today
3. Looking steadfastly for his coming
I also particularly liked Pres. Monson's story about the housekeeper and her gift of the Christmas star (made of old postcards). He always has the best stories. I have to say though, one of the things I enjoyed most was hearing the Tabernacle choir sing. I've only been to the Young Women's conferences so I have never heard them before. I absolutely loved it, they were amazing and the Christmas arrangements with the orchestra were so beautiful.

After the devotional ended we made our way to Temple square, along with everyone else so it was super crowded. However, seeing the lights and temple was totally worth it. There was a heavy fog so the temple looked even more amazing than usual. Thanks to April we captured it in several pictures.

This one's my favorite :)

Thanksgiving ABC's

Yesterday before we began feasting, each of us were given a piece of paper by my Grandma and asked to write down one thing we were thankful for, for every letter of the alphabet. Here is the list that I came up with:
Atonement
BYU
Cars
Dairy products
Energy
FHE family/Facebook
Grandparents
Hot chocolate
Ipod/Internet
Jacob the werewolf
Korea... south of the border
Letters
Missionaries
Novels
Oreos
Pictures
Queen, Oliver (Smallville)
Randomness
Superman/Scarves
Taylor Swift's music
Unicorns...it's so fluffy I could die!
Waffles
XOXOXO
Yellow sunshine
Zac Efron

Whitni's baptism

Whitni's baptism was just as awesome as I expected. The spirit was so strong and she was so happy it just emanated from her. In fact when she came up out of the water she was beaming and let out a little laugh she was so happy. It was pretty funny, but it didn't disrupt the amazing spirit there. At the end of the meeting before the closing prayer she got up to bear her testimony, it was then that I could tell she was truly converted and wasn't getting baptized for anyone else other than herself because she knew that it was true. Afterwards I came up to give her a hug and the water works started. We stood there hugging and crying and it was a pretty great moment. I was just so happy for her and I know that this big step will have such a far reaching impact on her life. It was also fun to spend time with people I hadn't seen since this summer. There was a big group of us high school friends who had all gathered from our different colleges to come to her baptism. It was really great to get back together for a weekend, especially for such a special occasion.

I'm in love... with Jimmer :)

This Friday we had our first home basketball game of the season against Fresno State. We left at about 5:30 in order to get seats for the 7:00 game. That might seem kinda early but the entire Marriot center was packed before it was even time for the game to start. My roommate Alysa and some of our other friends actually began waiting in line outside of the Marriot center at 1:00 pm in hopes to get really good seats. They did really well as they ended up only 6 rows back, but I just didn't have the time to join them as my last class on Fridays doesn't get out until 4:00 pm. Brock, Andrew, Bridger, April and I ended up in seats quite a bit higher but we still had a really good view.

 The game had an awesome start as they turned out all the lights and dropped giant white sheets from the ceiling on which they played a video clip of the basketball team that got everyone pumped for the game, it was way sweet.

And then the game began. Fresno hung on for a little while but they soon gave way to our team as we went on to beat them by almost double their points. It was a great game, we have some really great players this year, especially the up and coming legend Jimmer Ferdette. Let's just say this guy is amazing and I basically fell in love (along with the rest of the crowd) after watching him play, pretty impressive. We play Utah State this Wednesday and I'm hoping the basketball team can redeem our football team's loss to them earlier this fall.

Howl of the Dead!

I know this is a week late but I haven't had a chance to post about my Halloween adventures. Although there were plenty of awesome parties here in Provo, Brock, Andrew, and I decided to make the trip up to Utah State for the legendary Howl (pretty much the biggest, greatest, college halloween dance party in Utah). It also provided us with a great excuse to visit all of our high school friends currently attending Utah State, including Whitni :) We drove down late Friday afternoon and arrived just in time to get ready for a 1920's themed party. My good friend DJ recently was asked to join the Mormon frat at Utah State, Sigma Phi, and got us all invited to their party. We all dressed up snazzy, I lucked out as my planned halloween costume happened to be a flapper dress. The party was way fun, they had a dj and dance party down stairs with a fake bar serving different fruit drinks. Upstairs they had music in the style of the 1920's playing with more people dancing and others sitting on couches with big fake cigars to add to the mood of the time period.

(I just realized I got way more pictures of the guys then girls, they were just looking so classy)

(Now all I need is a black boa...)

The next we all woke up late and decided to explore Utah State's campus.The day was rainy but we had a blast exploring their different buildings, checking out the "True Aggie" monument, eating in the Market Place, and walking through their cemetery (which is surprisingly large and has the most beautiful trees). Then we made a stop a DI to outfit those of us who didn't yet have costumes. My personal favorites were Whitni and Danny who dressed up as a cheesy tourist couple, they pulled it off quite well.

(Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the two of them together)

The rest of us when back to the dorms to change. Since I'd already worn my costume the night before I decided to go with my classic gangster attire as it's much more comfortable. After some pictures we were on our way.

 (My awesome new gangsta shoes)

Lets just say the amount of people who attend the Howl is insane. I saw people there all the way from BYU I and most Utah colleges. We had bought tickets in advance and still had to wait an hour just to get in the door. The giant ballroom was filled to capacity for the dance. The djs were great and I had a blast in there. Then came time for the We the Kings concert. With the ballroom still full, another huge mass of people was congregated in the field house in order to see both The Format and We the Kings live. We switched over to the field house just in time to see the latter take the stage. They did an awesome job. Overall the Howl was so much fun, even more so because I got to spend all that time celebrating with some of my closest friends. The trip was definitely a success and I can't wait to go back in a couple weeks for Whitni's baptism :)

P.S. One more thing I have to add. Just outside Whitni's bedroom, posted in the dorm hallway is something called the Hot Wall, I thought it was pretty great so I had to take a picture.

Tender Mercies and Other Miracles

I haven't had a whole lot of time to write lately but I thought I'd better write some of the little tender mercies as well as big miracles I've had in my life lately.

• I missed a large chemistry quiz- after majorly stressing out I found out that one quiz score is dropped so missing one won't effect my grade at all.
• I thought I was going to have to pay $100 for a prescription because I hadn't read the fine print on the rebate well enough- I called the Doctor's office and they promised to get it all sorted out for me
• I have a huge new group of friends, most of whom are in my student ward, who are all great people and I love all of the crazy stuff we do together (snowball fights, nickel city, dollar movies, hot tubbing, dance parties, game night, mafia and more)

• I have awesome parents! I have a mom who takes the time to help me edit college papers, give me cooking & shopping advice, and talk to me on the phone everyday. And I have a dad who takes care of things I don't know how to do like buying computer ink online, he gives me father's blessings whenever I ask, and now that he has texting he's always sending me cute texts that give me a boost even if all they say is "hey how's your day going or whazz up? :)"
• And lastly, the biggest one of all has to do with one of my very best friends Whitni Gardner, who is currently attending Utah State. She has been taking the missionary discussions and has recently decided that SHE WANTS TO GET BAPTIZED!!! If you can't tell I'm a bit excited. The date is set for November 20 and I could not be more happy right now. I love her so much and I'm so glad she has accepted the gospel, I know it will change her life.

So even though college can be rough and certainly contains its own little trials, I know I'm very blessed. I am so grateful to be here at BYU, to have such amazing friends and family, and most of all to have the gospel in my life. :)

Halloween at Home: pumpkins, caramel apples, and mandarin spicy chicken :)

Idaho Falls and Provo are the perfect distance away. I get to experience truly living away from home while at the same time it's close enough for me to make a monthly visit. Although a little early, this weekend trip was Halloween themed and it was awesome. When I first got home everyone was already across the street at Sunnyside elementary school's Halloween carnival. My mom was in charge of a booth so I helped her for a bit and also got to see all my little siblings decked out in costumes. Some how I ended up with no pictures of that but Nathan was from Grease, Spencer was a football player, and Michelle was an adorable little witch decked out with a green face and everything. After the carnival we all headed home to watch the new Karate Kid movie. It's been a long time since our last family movie night, I loved it.

Although I neglected to get pictures of the costumes I did remember to take some of the decorations. Mom and the kids went all out before I got home and there are cute decorations all over the house. The one that creeped me out the most was the portrait of the vampire hanging where our picture of the prophet usually does, lets just say I did a very big double take when I first saw it.

Saturday morning I woke up early and went running. Then while everyone was off doing their seperate activities like sports or dance practice, I wrote my application paper for Book of Mormon. Then once everyone got back together it was time for pumpkin carving!

Look at all the beautiful pumpkins, they're kinda hard to see but there's a Nathan's scary face, Melanie's witch, Spencer's bat, and my skeleton pirate. (Michelle's cat was still being carved in the kitchen)

Here's a close up of my pirate, I decided it was a pretty decent Captain Jack Sparrow look alike :)

And now for the lit up versions...

After pumpkins it was time for making carmel dipped apples, my favorite! We had to dip them super fast before the caramel hardened so some of them turned out a little messy, but they were delicious. My favorite was the coconut with both white and milk chocolate chips, mmm so good. Mom even let me wrap two up and bring them back to college with me.

When all of our Halloween festivities were over my Mom and I took off to eat dinner at my favorite local  chinese restaurant, The Great Hunan. Wow have I missed that place, they have the most amazing mandarin spicy chicken ever! We had a great time and I loved being able to catch up in person. My mom has definitely become one of my best friends, some how even more so after leaving for college, and I love it :)

Sunday morning I got to attend my home ward and see my little brother Nathan ordained to the Aaronic priesthood. I can't believe he's old enough to pass the sacrament now, kinda crazy. Soon after, I was back on the road and headed back to Provo. It was a great weekend though and definitely helped rejuvenate me to face the second half the semester.

Homecoming...Gangsta style

This week was BYU homecoming, honestly some parts of it felt too reminiscent of high school for me but overall I ended up having a lot of fun. On Friday night my roommates had dates to the dance and I didn't so Brock and I decided to go thuggin' around Provo. We went to a bunch of places like the mall, Walmart, and the cocoa bean cupcake place, playing gangster music with our windows down the whole way haha we got some great looks. Then because we ran out of things to do we decided to stop by the outer-space themed homecoming dance my roommates were at. We didn't exactly blend in but we had a blast.

On Saturday I hung out with my roommates and Kenzie all day. We went shopping at Kohls and Plato's closet (the best place ever) and found some great deals, including the most incredible shoes which are shown in the picture below. We had a pizza picnic and then headed to the football game. Keeping with the gangster theme, and because they liked my awesome pink pants, Alysa and Kenzie bought colored pants as well and we all headed to the game decked out.

We felt a little discriminated against at the game as we were some of the only students they requested to see our IDs haha. It was all made up for though when the camera zoomed in on us three and we were on the jumbo screen for a long time, at least 30 seconds. We danced and went crazy, it was pretty awesome. Afterwards we had a bunch of people we know texting us because they saw it and liked our sweet outfits. Oh and we finally won another game, which was also exciting :)

Saturday night however strayed from the rest of the weekend's theme. Brock had previously asked me to the semi-formal dance but since we had ended up at the outer-space dance the night before we decided to do something else. We dressed up real classy like and then drove up to Salt Lake. We ate dinner at the Macaroni Grill which was delicious and had a great atmosphere that added to the night's overall feeling of classiness. Then we headed over to Temple Square and enjoyed the temple and all the other beautiful buildings there. It was fun since we both hadn't been there in quite awhile. Anyway the night was a great success and it was definitely fun to get out of Provo and enjoy the big city.

The beginning of my last year as a teen...

I'm officially 19! It sounds so old but I don't feel any different from when I turned 18 or even 17. I have to say though, for a first birthday away from home it turned out to be pretty great.

Part 1: My parents got into town the night before and we went to In and Out before I headed back to my apartment to study for my midterm. Wednesday morning I took my 5th test of the past 5 days, which was perfect because then I could spend the rest of the day stress free.  My parents took me back to their hotel where we ate breakfast before dropping my dad off at the Wilkinson Center for the BYU career fair. While he was busy recruiting, I went to classes as well as spent some quality bonding time with my mom. We sat on a bench in front of the Wilk for almost two hours just catching up and talking, a little surprising we still had so much to say considering I call her so often. After my last class we headed out to the Mall and Sams to do some shopping. Then came the part I'd been really looking forward to... Tucanos! Wow that place is amazing, thank you daddy :) I especially loved the grilled pineapple and really enjoyed the overall atmosphere of the place. I think my parents got a kick out of when the waiters made me stand up and dance to their singing in order to earn a complimentary birthday dessert haha and I don't blame them, but it was worth it even though I was already stuffed. (I'm so upset I don't have any pictures)

Part 2: When I got back to my dorm I found a surprise party waiting. My roommate Alysa had pulled it together on pretty short notice. They definitely surprised me though and it turned out to be way fun, with lots of people there. Here's a few of the birthday activities...

• Brownies with trick candles, I totally fell for them too when they burst back into flame haha I haven't seen those in years
• Pin the mustache on Justin Bieber
• "Smurf"
• Other outdoor games

I had a blast and was grateful for my roommate's initiative to get it all together. Once again I forgot to get any pictures actually during the party but I did capture some of the awesome decorations afterwards.

I didn't realize how much I looked like Dakota Fanning when I was little...

 One of the guys in my FHE group drew me this picture in honor of my birthday. I love how he signed it "your son" is saying "yay mom," haha they pretty much all refer to me as that now.

College Dating :)

This Friday my roommate Alysa and I were asked to go on a group date with two guys from the building across from us, Skyler and Hayden. It turned out to be one of the funniest dates I have ever been on, we we're laughing pretty much the entire time. Here's some of the crazy fun things we did...

• Packed a random picnic, consisting of tortillas, fruit cups, a half filled pitcher of fruit punch, cheese, turkey, and gold fish
• Sat on the edge of the MTC field by the temple until we got kicked out (there were 15 elders on the far opposite edge of the field, one walked all the way over to tell us we needed to leave. We said we were sorry and would go but as we proceeded to pack up he continued to tell us how insensitive we were and that it was already hard enough for missionaries and they didn't need to see people on a date. Haha wow it was so awkward but funny)

Here's our awkward faces after being kicked out

• Found a new park and ate the make-shift picnic on a bench, an old lady walking by stopped and partially took a photo shoot of us on our camera haha but hey I'm not complaining, we got some fun pictures :)

• We changed and headed to campus for a Techno dance, but we neglected to find out that it was hosted by German club and they were only playing straight techno with no words. But on the up side we got a bunch of glow sticks.

You've gotta love the pink pants!

• After leaving the Techno dance we kept our crazy outfits on and went to Subzero, we got some great looks from people

Overall it was great date and I look forward to more in the future :)

My Children...

This past Sunday I was called to be a family home evening group leader, otherwise known as FHE Mom, and I pretty much love it. Not only does it not require too much work, just planning awesome activities, but I also have really great people in my group. For our activity on Monday night we hiked the Y, it was my first time since being here this semester. It turned out being a perfect time to go since the temperature had cooled down and the city looked absolutely beautiful all lit up.

Home Sweet Home!

This weekend I also got to make my first trip home, and although it was short I had time to fit in plenty of fun stuff...

• Emotion bowl... IF won for the 4th year in a row!!!
• Huge family breakfast, so delicious
• Budgeting (not so fun but definitely needed to be done)
• DI hunting for costume pieces
• Putting together the most awesome Halloween costume ever, thanks again for all the help mom :)
• Movie Date
• Church at the homeward (people thought my carpool buddy Brock was my new BYU boyfriend I brought home to meet my parents, if it was a few more months into the year they probably would have started assuming he was my fiance haha oh wow funny stuff)

Anyway it was a great weekend but I forgot to take pictures. I did get one though of all the cute signs Spencer hung outside my bedroom Saturday morning before I woke up. It was pretty much adorable, I love that kid, and the rest of my siblings :)

Bridal Veil Falls

One of the things i love most about Provo is living so close to the beautiful mountains. This last Thursday Brock and I randomly decided we wanted to go on a hike, so after class we hopped in the car and drove only 10 minutes down the road before ending up at Bridal Falls.

The hike took less then 15 minutes and before we knew it we were half way up the waterfall. The view was incredible, and now I am finally cool enough to say that I've stood underneath a waterfall.

So we might have gone up a little higher then we were supposed to... but it was so worth it :)

I took way too many pictures to show them all but here's a few more of my favorites:

A Week of Firsts

I can't believe I've already been up here for three weeks. It's crazy how fast the time goes, but at the same time it's not too surprising as college life is so incredibly busy and fun. Here's a picture of Wyview, the freshman complex I'm leaving at, as well as a picture of the gorgeous view I have of the mountains every time I step outside my door.

One of the many great things, arguably one of the best things, about attending BYU is getting to go the football games, have amazing seats, and cheer with the rest of the crazy student section. Last weekend I went to my very first BYU football game ever and it definitely lived up to my expectations. We played a close game with Washington and won 23-17!

This past week I also got the opportunity to do baptisms for the dead in the Provo Temple. I've driven past this temple many times, but this was the first time I actually walked around the beautiful grounds as well as got to go inside. I owe the idea of the temple trip to my awesome roommate Alysa. She just got called to be our student ward's new Relief Society President and wanted to go there for some inspiration on who to call for counselors. She asked me to come along and I was all for it. (Plus side to having the RS President as your roommate, they aren't allowed to give you any big RS callings haha) Oh and a guy from our ward also came along because he had just gotten his mission call.