halloween (I added more)

just thought I'd update with some pictures of me and my roommates during our ward trick or treating... Hannah was busy with homework, so she didn't participate.


Casey, Me, Sarah, Jacey, Natalie


our apartment door setting... Jacey, Sarah, Natalie, Me, Casey Jo


Natlie has some cool settings on her computer. This is us looking in the bathroom mirror after realizing just how creepy we looked.


Me, Jacey and Sarah. Casey Jo and Natalie ran the booth and we glared at passers by.


Here's a fun one.

last week.

So, I've been pretty busy without getting a whole lot done this past week. I'm really not a fan of that. I'd like to feel like when I'm constantly doing something that I'm getting things accomplished, but I guess that's how the pages fall sometimes.
I got a letter from Cj Huntsman on Thursday. finally. I wrote him over a month ago, so I thought maybe he had died or something. No, I understand that missionaries are very busy, and I'm just a random friend who won't be getting a very high priority, but still. AND! his companion is Scott Christensen who is a friend of mine from my BYU ward last year, so they had both stuck a letter in the envelope. What are the chances of that actually happening? Especially because they have been out close to the same amount of time. Scott has maybe been out 2 or 3 months longer, but that's it. Weird.
I had work last night. Coed Volleyball. I wrote my cousin Colton back who is serving in the Talahassee Florida Mission and then started writing Cj back... all while at work. It helps the time to pass by faster. Also, there were a ton of halloween parties going on, and people would show up to the games late, like entire teams would show up late, and expect me to undo their forfeit. I really don't like it when people do that.

k, you know what, this blog is getting really boring. still. so I think I'm just going to post it. call it good.

Except that today was really productive and I did get things done. I woke up and did the dishes, then I cleaned the bathroom, then I ate breakfast (brunch?) then I showered, got my hair cut, and picked up Natalie from the airport. Good day eh?

8 things

Stacy "tagged" me (or rather, everyone in her link list) so I get to write 8 weird or interesting facts about myself that everyone might not know. Basically because I am bored. And it is Sunday afternoon. And I am full, seeing as I just ate dinner. And I'm soon going to be eating dessert. And I don't want to do anything productive. And I'm getting help from my roommates because I'm not really on top of things myself today.

1)I analyze people. I'm pretty perceptive. I like to know as much about people's personalities as is possible. I like to know how I can/should act around them. And it bothers me when I can't find out what's bothering them. Some people shy away from conflict, and I'm all about avoiding it when I can, but if the conflict already exists, I can't resist investigating the problem and talking about it so it will be fixed. Unless there will be a greater conflict by nosing about. Then I suffer alone... in utter agony... right.

2)I unconsciously pucker my lips when watching kissing scenes in movies. yeah, I know.

3)I am the queen (THE QUEEN) belcher. oh yes. You wouldn't believe it, but it's true.

4)I sometimes pray in a hispanic accent.

5)I broke my bedroom door. (here in my apartment) Pulled it right off the hinges. And not out of rage... out of shear strength...

6)I play spider solitaire while waiting for pages to upload on my computer. always. and I generally end up playing more solitaire than getting anything done.

7)I'm in love with all of my roommates. Seriously. We never fight. Does that ever happen in real life? not very often... not very often.

8)I value people. Actual people. Not what they can do for me, not how I can make them like me, but them.

what I got from him.

This is the response I got to the very short email I sent him (about as long as his). It's not much, but it's what I got.

yeah the actual physical writing was kind of missed this past week by
both of us. i don't want to make excuses, but i usually wait for your
letter and write back to respond. but again, no excuses, i'm sorry.
i'm in the process of making another tape. it's longer, so i should have
it finished in a little less than a week. i got your pictures of the
baby too. cute. both of you. i saw your blog pictures. dang.
just... wow. anyways, i gots to go write my family.
i miss and love you too. bye.

I wrote the short email wednesday just before I knew he was going to be checking his email. I told him I was in the middle of writing him a letter and that he'd get it soon (er or later).

Turns out he's checked out my blog... don't know how much time he spent on it, but in my letter, I kind of lectured him on not checking my blog, especially because I could write semi-distracting things on here that I wasn't writing to him on purpose, or post semi-distracting pictures... hopefully he'll avoid that from now on. I mean, look what he said about the pictures. I feel like satan, dang it.

mission prep "celebration"

So, I have mission prep once a week on Monday nights from 5-6:40 pm. Last week, Brother Bott (such a great professor, knows EVERYTHING, but in a different way than Brother Millet, my new testament professor, who also, knows EVERYTHING) gave us our first take home test aka "celebration". He likes to try and make us think it's gonna be this really great fun thing. It's not so much. It is now 1:37 am Monday morning and I'm just settling in to start it. Why am I blogging? you might ask. Because. This is just like me. I have had an entire week to spend researching the answers to this OPEN BOOK TAKE HOME test, and I haven't even started until the wee morning hours of the day that it's due. I was considering not going to any of my classes tomorrow, but that's just a bad habit waiting to happen. I'm trying to make some sort of a turning point in my education techniques... well at least in some aspects of it. Like going to every single class. I still find it a little difficult, knowing that I don't HAVE to be there, to actually motivate myself to go. I've been doing pretty good recently. Haven't missed any in the last two weeks or so. I think...

Church today was SO wonderful. I really needed it. Conference was wonderful last week, don't get me wrong, I really soaked in all of the talks and felt so enlightened. I think I missed the sacrament though. I think I got into the habit of taking it for granted and then when I didn't get it one week things kind of crashed... huh... Jacey, one of my roommates spoke in Sacrament; all of the talks were on the Atonement, (one of the most difficult topics to speak on, in my opinion) but she did wonderfully. She was up until the wee hours of this morning writing it, and all her hard work paid off. One of the speakers was out of town which left Bishop Lundberg to talk for a while. It was a really good meeting, very inspiring and uplifting and motivational...

I've been called to be an enrichment specialist. We had our first meeting today after church. Basically since we're doing quarterly enrichments now, we, as a committee of specialists, get to plan smaller scale activities that groups who are interested can participate in. A couple weeks ago, we sent around a clipboard for ideas on what these activities could be, and a lot of girls were interested in a spa/relaxation night. Heh, guess that's were I come in. At the meeting, I suggested that since I was a MaryKay consultant and that I just happened to have all the necessary supplies ready anyways that I could be in charge of that sort of thing. So, next sunday, I'll be sending around another fun little clipboard asking girls who are interested for the phone #'s and free times etc. It should be fun. All of the girls I've talked to so far are pretty psyched about it. yay.

I had dinner at Andrea's house today. brook was dressed pretty cute-ily. Yes I made that up. So we took a picture.



Mom's been there all last week and will continue to be there this week helping out with Karalee Jo and whatnot. Andrea told me yesterday to come and do my laundry there, which we got started before the game, but not done. So when I went over today, my mom had finished all of my laundry and folded it nicely for me... wasn't that nice of her? She's pretty great. And then she sent me home with left-overs. I was in charge of changing Karalee Jo's diaper after she ate... let's just say that was an experience and a half. And it's not like I've never changed a diaper before. Hello, I was a young woman once and babysat for everyone and their mother in the ward. But I'd never experienced THAT before. oh my gosh. Mom had to take over it was so ridiculous. and continuous. and goo.

Then, when I got home, we decided to create Harriet; a lovely addition to our apartment that freaks us all out when we see her out of the corner of our eyes.



She has acquired a skirt and boots since this picture was taken. It's pretty hilarious. My mom got me her head; it's a candy bowl for halloween, but of course the candy was gone within a few hours of it being noticed. so we decided to make her useful in another way; to creep people out. However, it mostly just creeps us out. so there you have it.

Also, fun little work story from last week. I was supervising soccer and we had no score cards in the binder like we ALWAYS do... so I had to improvise.




K. So I'm gonna go ahead and get started on that Mission prep take home test. It should be fun, right?

ha! get this.

Free Online Dating from JustSayHi

good times.

and the pictures...

an explanation.

So, I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not, but for the past two weeks, we have had a fort in our family room. And I mean a full blown fort taking up the entire room, complete with a "lounge area" and an ironing board in the center to hold it all up. It was really awesome. More than awesome. It was our claim to fame. People we had never met, let alone ever seen before, came to our apartment to see this fort of fame. We had several movie nights, girl talks (that occasionally included boys), and photo shoots in/involving the fort. It truly became a large part of our life, and we were intensely emotionally attached to this fort.
Cleaning checks are this Tuesday and, therefore, the fort had to come down. Friday, as somewhat of a joke, we decided to have a "taking down the fort ceremony." We decided it would be appropriate if we all wore black out of respect for the comfort and memories the fort provided during difficult times. Then, as we were getting ready, we added a little red here and there. Then the really Red lipstick was brought out and there was no containing us. We largely poofed our hair, I busted out the red heels and cameras. We pretty much lost control, but had a ton of fun doing so. Then, since we had not had dinner, we went to the Malt Shop (all of us but Natalie and Casey Jo, who stayed to let in the visitors) and little did we consider the fact that it would be totally PACKED. We got a few interesting looks and a lot of boys asking us if we were part of a salsa dance team or something. They found our real explanation much cooler than the lame "salsa dance" excuse they had come up with themselves. That was fun. When we got home, there were tons of people there. It must have been close to 20 people there just to see the fort come down. Jacey and Casey Jo had prepared a few words (which were HILARIOUS) and we had the Lord of the Rings sound track playing in the background for some mood music. After the speeches, we threw rose petals on top (we really got into it, I'm telling you, it was awesome) and then took it down. Then we proceeded to take pictures again.
Man. That night was badly needed by me. I had taken 3 tests friday and was completely burnt out. I know most of these pictures are pretty dumb, but it's college, and I figure, I'm not going to be able to be retarded freely forever, right? K, and since I'm in my apartment and the Internet is being slow, I'll post pictures tomorrow on campus.
I got a letter from Mike. He told me he was going to send something in the envelope and that I should be ready for it. When I got home from work on Friday and the letter was sitting there, I was, of course, thoroughly excited. I opened it, but there was nothing but the letter and some shards of plastic in the envelope. Then I noticed there was a 2 inch tear on the opposite end of the envelope. The poor boy had tried to send me a tape (I sent him one in his package) but he didn't realize that you should probably use a bubble envelope for things like that. So, since my letter wouldn't get there by his next p-day (I was planning on waiting so I could write about conference) I wrote him a short email saying it would probably be wise if he would consider the not-so-fragile nature of the US postal system the next time he tried to send me something somewhat-fragile. Also, the tape had a lot on it apparently, because the letter kept saying, "but I talked about that in the tape, so never mind." So hopefully, he can fill me in on everything he said in the tape in his next letter. I know he wanted some addresses, he kind of alluded to that in the letter too... hmm...
Speaking of conference (kind of) how awesome was it!? Oh my gosh. I think that was the most influential conference I've ever sat through (and stayed awake through). I found something applicable to me in every talk I think. Some of the talks just had things that I wanted to talk to mike about, so that was kind of cool in that way too.
Also, Katie Brunson spent the weekend here. That was really fun. I was busy a lot, but she had other friends to visit as well. We went to visit Andrea and Karalee Jo and of course, we soaked that up. It was really nice to be able to hang out with Katie especially since I never see her anymore. Good times. Love her.
K, that should be about everything, and I need to get to bed. I'll probably add more when I get up on campus tomorrow, but we'll see.

a preview for upcoming blogs

Snow In September

We thought we were going to be getting a little cold front here, but that turned out to be a huge understatement...

Snow... In September... I thought the snow last April was bad. Not fun.

My new niece was born last Friday and we went to visit them in the hospital. Mom and baby are both perfectly fine. And she is precious! See?



So, I'm trying to get Mike's letter finished so I can send it off today. Not like he'll get it by tomorrow, but still. Katie Brunson is coming up to spend the weekend here. I need to go grocery shopping because I have no food. And that's fine when it's just me, but I feel like I should have some food available when I have company. Odd how things work out like that. Also, today should end up being a HUGE catch up day as far as homework goes. I have a bunch of tests this and next week. yay. I love college.