Salt Lake Shopping Spree!

One of my favorite things about going to school in Provo is being so close to Salt Lake City. I love being able to take a break from campus life and enjoy a night out in the big city. Last week on Saturday the 12th, Brock and I decided that we'd earned a well deserved break and what better place to take it than to go shopping at the Gateway mall, at least I thought so and I'm glad he agreed :) We headed out about noon and spent a good 5 hours there, trying on lots of clothes as well as just checking out fun stores like the electronics place, Dicks sporting goods, and this classy/expensive purse shop (nice customer service, they even offered us little cups of water while browsing haha). Anyway, we had a great time and I was able to get some needed clothing for the coming warm weather. After we exhausted the mall we decided to stop by Temple Square since neither of us had spent much time in the visitor centers there in a long time. One of them has a new large model of the Salt Lake Temple inside that is cut away so you can see what some of the different rooms look like, it's really awesome. We also spent some time just wandering up and down the square talking and looking at the various buildings, the temple looking absolutely beautiful as always. I never get tired of touring temple square and I love that I get the chance to do so a lot more frequently now.

I forgot my camera but I did get a picture of me and my shopping spoils the next day :)

Homework on a Friday Afternoon

When the sun is shining on a beautiful Friday afternoon and it's warmer outside than it has been in months the last thing a normal person would think is that it's a great time to do homework. However, this past Friday my great friend Lachelle and I had a big chemistry test coming up and knew that was what we should probably be doing... so we decided to make it more interesting. We made a trip to the dollar store and got to work. We got some pretty great looks and funny comments, but despite the nerdiness of it all we had a blast and feel a little bit more confident about our test. Here is what we created, personally I can't think of a better way to study on such a beautiful spring day :)

Valentines Day!!!

Valentines Day started out just like any other Monday, with me waking up at the crack of dawn in order study for my weekly anatomy lab quiz. After getting that out of the way, with a good score :), things were only looking up. I knew Brock had plans to take me out, but considering our friendship status I wasn't expecting much. However, I was still excited for the night and decided I wanted to do something for him first, I just didn't know what. After talking to my mom on the phone I came up with the perfect plan, a combination of being cute, funny, and out right cheesy, by heart-attacking his door, leaving candy, and a note. I cut out tons of hearts, wrote on them, and set out with April in a stealthy mid-afternoon attack. Luckily we timed it perfectly and Brock just happened to be out. His roommate however, did catch us. We may or may not have frightened him a bit when he tried to come outside and we grabbed the door handle telling him to go back in and pretend like he didn't see anything haha but it all worked out. So far its still there and I snagged this picture a couple days later, I'm glad Brock ended up liking it. (He does a good job of pretending to be surprised in the picture, sadly I forgot to take any pictures the actual night, of this or our date)

Later that night Brock showed up at my door with three pink roses, looking quite handsome in his dark jeans and black sports coat. I do have to say that we're looking pretty dang good together ;) but alas no pictures (I wore a black sequined top and jacket, dark skinny jeans, and heels). After I put the flowers in a vase we headed out to P.F. Changs. Thank goodness Brock had thought ahead to make reservations because it was crazy busy with up to a 2 hour waiting time. This was my first time eating there and I have to say wow it was definitely as good as everyone says it is. After finishing the delicious chinese food we headed back to Brock's apartment to kill some time before heading to the movies. While there we talked to his roommate David and his date, as well as shared some sparkling cider. Then Brock surprised me yet again with a beautiful red rose and some great smelling perfume/lotion from Victoria Secret (I'll be the first to say he definitely spoils me). Stopping by my apartment to add the additional rose to the vase we then went to the movie theater to end the night by watching the new movie Just Go With It, with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. So as you can see I was a very lucky girl this Valentines Day. Even though I started out the day trying not to have too high of expectations, I ended up having the perfect night with my perfect guy :) Thanks Brock!

Time to de-stress

Sometimes the stress of school gets to be too much and it's just time to take a break. Now as an experienced second semester freshman... I have come up with several ways of de-stressing after a long day/week of classes, homework, and tests. Here are just a few:

• Hot tubbing, at the apartment complex across the street... luckily no one's figured out we don't live there yet
• Phone calls with my mom
• Weekly TV shows on hulu, my personal favorites being slightly stereotypical of a teenage girl haha but thats ok; Glee, Bachelor, Pretty Little Liars, the Office, and Gossip Girl.
• Yoga! I never knew that it could actually be such a good work out, although personally I just love corpse pose ;)
• BYU brownies, need I say more
• 30 minute naps can be the best thing ever
• Making a dinner that involves more than the microwave
• Card games, my new favorite being "Hand and Foot"
• Dollar movie theater down the road
• Skyping Amy :)
• Decorating the apartment, it's a little obvious that we're Jimmer fans
• Going on runs by the temple
• Car trips home or to Utah State
• $5 Blackjack pizza deals
• Visiting my Grandparents in Spanish Fork
• Hanging out in Scott's slightly getto apartment
• Spontaneous dance parties
• Baseball throwing lessons from Brock
• Driving around Provo with the windows down playing gangster music
• Walmart runs for snacks and hitting up Redbox
• Collapsing on a couch in the Wilk with a Jamba in hand
• Making crazy pictures and poems out of a romantic word magnet set my roommate Alysa found somewhere (one of the few I captured a picture of, April and I created this one night about a month ago)

And like I said this list isn't even complete, but these are the kind of things that keep me loving college even when it does get hard.

Renewed Commitment

This whole blog endeavor started with a challenge from my Aunt Lisa to post once a week. I started out pretty strong but in the last couple of months I've been lucky to complete my Christmas post. But today as I happened upon Lisa's blog to see she has reached her 5th anniversary of posting, it hit me how awesome it would be to have books like that to look back on. College only comes around once and I don't want to forget all the fun times and crazy experiences that I have. So to make a story short I have renewed my commitment to weekly blogs, no matter how busy life gets :)

Christmas Celebrations

I can't believe its already been a month since I posted last, life has certainly been crazy. Having Scott up at the Y and a heavier class load has definitely kept me busy. Before it gets too late though I really wanted to post about some of the highlights during my Christmas break.

A New Addition to the Family
We had so much fun with her when I brought my roommate April home for thanksgiving that when we found out she had no plans for the holiday we insisted that she return home with us. My siblings love her to death, probably because she's willing to play games with them (including the boys' favorite Yugio).

Santa Surprise dinner
Melanie and her friends took a turn hosting our annual Santa surprise dinner. The food was great and it was a lot of fun sitting at a table full of friends I hadn't seen since summer. We also had plenty of neighbor friends over as well with the total number of seated people coming out to almost 30. We were lucky that we all fit into the kitchen.

Christmas at the Sandalls

Since we decided to postpone our usual traditions and present opening until Scotts return, the Sandall family invited us to come celebrate Christmas eve and day with them. We had a blast, the kids had new playmates, there was great food, and I had a great time catching up with Holly and Stuart. It was also great to see how they've picked up on some of our favorite traditions like using code names for the presents, such as toy story, and even better taking most of the day to open them, stopping for the occasional movie or game ;)

The Nativity Scene

This year's was especially fun as we got to act out the nativity with all of the Jackson kids as well as the Sandalls. April and I played the stoic and introspective shepherds :)

Christmas Pajamas

The Jackson family all matching again, we're only missing Scott but he'd join us in just a few days. No my mother didn't sew them all herself this time but I think she still did a good job considering she could find something that came in all of our sizes.

Picking up Scott at the Airport

This was obviously the long awaited event of the week. After three trips to the airport just to find out that his plane had been once again delayed because of a snowstorm in Salt Lake, we finally got to pick up our big brother and bring him home.

Our neighbor/adopted aunt Brenda Jamison recorded the whole thing on camera for us and caught some pretty funny moments in our anticipation, as well as some joyful cheers, screams, and even tears upon his arrival.

Christmas Celebrations
After picking up Scott we had a late Christmas eve dinner and then gathered round to hear some stories from his mission, try mexican candy, and open the gifts he had brought home with him. (Perfume for the girls and nice jackets for the boys)

Christmas morning we started with the stockings, one of my favorite parts, and then enjoyed being together as we spent the day opening gifts and playing games.

Talent Show
The Sunday before Scott and I headed back up to BYU we also had an awesome family talent show in which everyone contributed, with lots of fun piano playing and singing. I need to give a shout out to Melanie for organizing it, she did a great job and also learned the accompaniment to many songs so that we wouldn't have to sing to a CD. Also I have to say that singing and playing duets with my sisters is one of my favorite things in the world, I hope we continue to enjoy making music together for the rest of our lives :) (Thank you mom and dad for all of the lessons and and making us practice)

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.