free!

I am so very happy and FREE!

I'll update soon with pictures of the past month

merry christmas

no snow. no ice. weather above 65 degrees.
no one could ask for better weather around christmas time at home.

dane came to visit my family and I for the weekend before christmas and it was a blast having him come home with me.

here are a few photos the week of christmas...

the "gingerbread" sand castle made up of everything from ritz, to m&ms, cereal, pastries you name it. the Ritz Carlton always makes an amazing display.

before the christmas concert noah participated in that my home stake put on

we had a lot of beach time jumping from dana point to laguna down to san clemente. trying to show him all my favorite spots in so little time.

christmas is always a fun event at my house with the little ones.
here is faye so organized and heading straight for her room right after.

Tess also talked me into a "photoshoot" for her and her friend ruby on christmas day.

Christmas Day.. pretty huh?

it beats being in 18 degree weather thats for sure..


cool rock sculptures down by the harbor.
it's incredible how they do them

snow snow ice snow

This weekend turned out to be more intense and crazy then it should have been.
It started out on Friday when I threw together a big group date that could have turned horribly wrong. Around 8 couples came over Friday night for a snowman building contest(the snow was way too powdery for that so it fell through..) and christmas games with hot chocolate and tim-tam slams. {tim tam slams are when you take a Tim Tam aussie cookie and bite off the opposite corners and use the waferish cookie as a straw for your hot chocolate}
We played Christmas pictionary, and a Christmas name game.
It was a lot of fun getting everyone together for a game night, I was worried it wouldn't work out because it came together last minute. Dane played host with me by entertaining and making the hot chocolate which helped me out a lot.

Friday was awesome but it was Saturday night that i still can't believe i had to go through...

Our friend Matt invited a bunch of people to head up to his cabin Saturday night up near park city. Great! i thought that sounded like it would be a lot of fun and there is snowmobiling and being with friends what could go wrong?
While we were there is was fun and i rode a snowmobile for the first time.
Dane was driving and as we were driving down towards the house he sees on the side of the trail a hill of powder that would be fun to try and make it up the side and back down.
Apparently you have to lean into the turn on the snowmobile.. I wish i remembered this useful information because as we come back down after creating our own trail i didn't turn into the turn and we start tipping. I didn't actually think i could make this huge machine close to tipping over, that makes a girl feel good about herself.. but sure enough there we go. I just bail as he tries to keep the s.mobile from falling on me, it's a good thing he's strong, but i still won't let him forget that he threw me from the s.mobile and how i almost died :) {of course i exaggerated a tad}

on the snowmobile

snowmobile tracks

while we are at the cabin the snow just starts to come down heavy and people start to worry about getting snowed in and being able to get home to study for finals and other things they had to do. Half the group wanted to stay and drive during the day light, the other half wanted to leave. Thinking back we should have just stayed because driving at night in a storm is one of the scariest things i have had to do.
The roads were no where near plowed and when we did see plows they were always going the opposite way. My dream would have been to follow a plow all the way home.
We all head out from the cabin and 4 cars head to provo and 2 cars split to salt lake.
I am driving my truck (which i didn't want to drive in the first place) and I make our friend taylor get in my front seat so he can coach me while i drive through the snow.
I was tense the whole way trying to follow the tracks in front of me and trying not to break and slide and it was a disaster. The car that we were following was an all-wheel drive and they took off. They were so far ahead of us that we had no idea where to go and couldnt see his tracks anymore that we had to call him and remind him to stay close so that the california and arizona drivers can follow. We were only able to drive 10-30mph the whole time. The car behind me got stuck twice and once spinning out, the car in front of me drove off the rode into 3 feet of powder, danes car going to salt lake spun out into a 360 stopping just 2 feet away from the pole. I felt like i had pretty decent control over my truck the whole time with occasional sliding and hydroplane on snow. It took us 3 hours to get home when normally it takes about 2, and getting there took us 3 hours as well because we got lost quite a bit.
I do not like driving in the snow, and i definitely never want to drive in it for 6 hours in one day. I am so so glad we are all back safely, we should have just stayed the night because the visibility driving in the storm was terrible, and since we were doing it at night didn't help either.
I guess on the bright side, i have some experience for driving in terrible conditions...

from the date night friday making the hot chocolate

recently...

it was my 21st birthday!

woo hoo vegas baby.. oh wait.. nevermind..
but it was still a great day because Mandy (my lovable roommate) made sure i had a blast.
she made me cinnamon rolls for breakfast and didn't complain about waiting in a longer then usual line at the in n out in Orem.

Mandy, Natalia and I went to in n out for my birthday lunch, and can i just say it was the greasiest most amazing burger i have had in a long time.

and i had to get a neapolitan shake. perfect.

then that night
(after mandy and i decorated our little christmas tree.. can you see it? cute huh?)
we went out to dinner at the new Pizza Pie Cafe (buffet style)and i stuffed myself with as much pizza and dessert pizza possible

mandy was the best and made me a cake, my aunt laura even stopped by as well and delivered a cake too with my cousin. It was such a great day.

we ate cake and opened presents from my mom and mandy
thanks you guys!
slipper socks from mandy

The next night I went to salt lake and received these
they are so beautiful, i love them!
He did a fabulous job picking them out and making sure they were "spunky" enough for me
i love the curly things and the orchids and tulips are wonderful
thank you everyone for all the birthday wishes

byu vs utah

this past weekend was the big BYU vs UTAH rivalry game.
contrary to what my recent posts might make you think, i dont go to many football games.
before this year I believe i went to a total of 3 games in my life, serious. and now in the past 2 months i have doubled my number! to add to that i finally am understanding football for once and enjoying it :) thanks to the ute.
my lack of experience with college football and rivalry games i have never been to town during a byu/utah game and let me tell you.. it was intense.
I just don't understand how nuts fans can get and how rude people can be because of a game. Saturday was an experience, especially going to BYU and playing volleyball for the Y but dating a ute and having gone to more utah football games than byu games, i felt like i was cheering for both sides!

red vs blue..

The game went back and forth and the forth quarter got pretty intense especially after a yawn worthy 3rd quarter. it went into over time 20-20 and byu finished the game 26-23.
I have never seen so many zoobies in my life rush the field.

crazy zoobies. :)

he was a good sport and actually smiled for a picture after the game.. but you can see the sadness in his eyes. I'm sorry!! but i had to capture the moment :)

the rivalry will continue...

pink skies, crepes and football

i finally feel like my energetic self again
yayy!
i didn't feel too sick just the occasional cough
so this weekend consisted with some football, battle of the bands and crepes

the sunset one night was beautiful and pink up in salt lake

i have been craving crepes with sugar and lemon juice for a while now and i decided that friday we would make them and cross our fingers that they would turn out.
the first one- looked terrible. but the first one in all batches of anything usually turn out bad anyways.. the rest of them were very good. i loved it.
i forgot to take pictures until the very last crepe was to be eaten and i quickly snapped one but i promise all the others looked a lot better and they tasted so good!
i want to make them right now.

(our sad last crepe)

after crepes we ran over ot the wilk on campus to watch our friends in Goodnight Annabelle perform.
they did a fantastic job. it was so much fun.

Saturday i went to another football game...

yes it was a utah game too.
i know i know. what am i doing? but it is a lot of fun.. i just sing hymns and the cougar fight song to myself the whole time :)
here are a few words that my dad and i had with each other about the game..


haha what a funny guy. he's joking... i think :)
it made me laugh.

here we are in the front row of the muss. i tried to blend in so i wouldn't get beaten up and i had a disguise on with straight hair so i couldn't be recognized

what a beast.

this is what everyone in the BYU Student Athlete Building is talking about...
this girl is a beast. and she didn't get thrown out of the game.
just one yellow card she tries to argue her way out of...
BYU soccer girls are the best.

mormon messages

i was just on lds.org and watched the Mormon Message from Henry B. Eyring "Choose this Day"
{its very good please watch..}
and as i am watching i realize... thats my friend!
hahaha
Erik.
I laughed out loud. i had no idea!

(this is erik.. now look for him in the video)

i hate being sick.

i have been feeling sick since Thursday.
luckily i have awesome friends to take care of me when i am not at home..
i need to get better asap. like now.

halloween

I wasn't sure how this halloween would work out.
I had been sick since thursday {just in time for the weekend} so friday i just stayed home and coughed alll night.
{side story: i took a muscle relaxer to help me sleep through the night on friday and i did this went to bed early, then i open my eyes about a half hour later and i thought i saw 2 people in red shirts. one crouching next to mandys bed, the other by the dresser. i sit up and start yelling "who is that, whos there? what is this?" Mandy, who was just falling asleep shoots up and runs to flip the light on, no one was there. But i remember seeing them...here's the thing. i wasn't scared, i just didnt know who was in the room. i fell right back asleep. i think it was just the muscle relaxers and all this flu medicines i had been taking that day. I still freaked mandy out and we slept with the light on and she left the room and watched cast away with our other roommates.}

so on saturday, i was at home all day cleaning and just laying low and luckily Ki had talked me into going out that night instead of staying at home sick on halloween.

Ki, Carpe and I dressed up as flowers last year and this year we wanted to be something fun, we decided on skunks.
My awesome mother made us 3 our skunk costumes and they were a hit all night. Everyone laughed and thought they were such great costumes. Thanks mom!

ki and carpe
the skunks.

we went to pick up a scary movie and look who i found :)

kevin :) i havent seen him in what seems like years. we were babes together and grew up like a brother/sister

with chad! volley picture

i ran into him again! :)
i got to see kevin again and this time he was with joel
i love old friends

we loved loved loved being skunks and getting all the attention.
come on, we are yellow personalities. we love it.
we also had a skunk walk...

hogle zoo

Last Saturday Mandy, Nat and Liz went to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake
and of course it had to be pouring rain the day we picked to be at the zoo but it was still so much fun because mandy and i wore our ponchos all day :)

mandy and i won the way to the zoo

i love penguins :)

mandy looking good in her pink childs poncho

mandy is obsessed with sloths...

at the pie after

i have a great mom

i don't know what it was about this week
okay maybe i do know.
I just won't share...
but it was a bumming week!
anyways guess who found out about that?


yup. my mother
she's great thanks mom! she sent me cookies and cupcakes from the sweet tooth fairy. they were amazing... i don't know how i got so lucky with an awesome mother but i did.
i love you mom! thank you!

delicious

youtube is awesome

I have never been into youtube before unless someone tells me of a video to watch. These are some that i have loved introduced by other people...

stanky leg baby



remember how i posted the song Colors by Amos Lee the other day? This is a cover of Amos Lee's song Sweet Pea (also in the AT&T commercials)
this guys is so good i love his voice



mandy showed me this one and it is one guy from Yale who recorded himself and harmonizing. He is amazing.



this one just makes me laugh :)



this is the top 100 youtubes

i need to remember

the things that i love.
for lunch i grabbed a loaf of bread from the wilk on campus and can i just tell you how delicious these little guys are? It's a wheat loaf that is warm and soft on the inside accompanied with honey butter. while i was eating this it got me thinking that i absolutely love them. (i know my mom loves them too) and i was thinking about all these random little things that make me happy which i needed today...

tiny loaf of wheat bread and honey-butter

smores and bon fires at the beach

the PBR
I can't wait for it in January with my family and friends

these children and their smiles and laughter are without a doubt at the top of my list

i love big bulbed lights that string outside throughout a yard

cute old couples still in love

this view of the timp mountain. its my favorite peak here

marley my protective puppy

and i love this new song that lau introduced to me this weekend
called Colors by Amos Lee featuring Norah Jones
perfect song for the way i was feeling today

pictures that have made me smile lately..

especially this one <3
and any from Africa

october.

the temperature dropped and yesterday i would have said it felt like winter, but today is better because it actually feels like autumn now.
I love all the trees changing colors and how utah has real seasons compared to where i grew up in california it was pretty much the same all year long.

I really hope this fall i can go to a pumpkin patch and pick out pumpkins with friends and have a pumpkin carving night.

I also hope I can find time this year to take a drive into the canyon and take pictures of the fall season and capture all the leaves changing. I didn't get a chance to last year, so I am hoping this year I can get out there on a sunday and drive to park city.

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.
-Brian Tracy

"if you are going through hell, keep going."
{winston churchill}

Character cannot be developed in peace and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
- Helen Keller

i've needed to hear a few good quotes lately


"we must not let our passions destroy our dreams"
Presiden Thomas S. Monson

i am obsessed

with oreos.

i love them so much.
but only regular oreos
i do not like double stuff
my favorite part is the cookie..
i could just use a tad bit of the filling and be just fine

I even found a magnet i need to get myself for our fridge.
Even my roommate mandy has jumped on the oreo-love-train

maybe i should be an oreo for halloween..
i'm still trying to find a good costume.

what should i be?

please. don't judge me..

please.

just don't say anything...

{that ute and i}

i will admit it was a lot of fun and definitely an experience in that muss.

in the mood

...for some awesome paintings.
I fell in love with this one, "when freckles collide" featured on Rockstar Diaries when she did a giveaway for the painting from the artist Casey O'Connell

"when freckles collide"

While i was on Casey's website I looked through her other work and i loved this one

"Pen Pal"