I like you, Tennessee

Today I woke wrapped up in a cocoon of sheets in my small twin-sized bed, my face turned to the window. Dull light was filtering in through the dusty white blinds. Peering outside with eyes half closed, I saw only two colors at first: vibrant green and then a dark, rich gray.

"clouds were as thick and dark as a good southern pecan pie. #Tennesseestorms" I Tweeted. I had fallen asleep with my iPod in my hand, doing my usual blog stalking and wedding video watching. My roommates know what I'm talking about. The storm was just ending and I listened for a while to the soft rolls of thunder moving away.

This summer I wasn't too excited about coming home. I had wanted to stay with the tall brown mountains but Tennessee was calling me home. I felt like something was pulling me back. That good ol' southern culture where people are always fixin' to do somethin' or other and bless her heart, she's so ugly she'd run a dog off a meat wagon and why're you always tryin to holler at nothin'? I digress. This summer I aim to see a lil' more of good ol' Dixie. Road trip anyone?

Today I spent some time picking strawberries in our garden (and eating most of them ... what?) and letting the hot southern sun scorch my skin. Hello warm earth in my toes and moist air. Hello green hills and thunderstorms.

I like you, Tennessee. Good thing, because that's where I'll be this summer.

P.S. Fun fact: During the Civil War, being one of the Confederates States, Tennessee had the biggest support of volunteers in his rebel army of all the Southern States.

last roommate group pics

The roommies and I had one last picture session before the end of the semester because we're all splitting up. For good. As I look back at all the fun adventures we've had, I'm grateful to have spent time with these lovely ladies but I'm also ready for new relationships and new friends. ♥

happiness: do it

do what makes you happy: today I wore my favorite ruffly shirt and I danced in the elevator by myself all 7 floors up to my work.

festival of colors festivities

"Okay everyone. There's about to be a serious lack of oxygen! If you can't breathe when the powder gets thrown, go down! 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... "

My hand opens, revealing a brilliant red chalk powder. I am in a large field right packed closely together with thousands of other people in front of a large marble Hindu temple, its spires making funny shadows in the dusty grass below my feet. I take a deep breath, hold my hand high, and on the count of 3, I release the soft chalk into the air. Thousands of other hands reach up and toss up their colored chalk powder in blues, greens, yellows, reds, creating an impossibly thick cloud of rainbow dust. Loud laughter and hot sun mix with the chalk dust as it rains back down on all of us in that crowd. My lungs felt thick and my eyes watered but I laughed. Bright white smiles emerged from the dusty faces of everyone around me. Spring is here and this is how we celebrate.

My roommates and I went to the annual Festival of Colors at the Krishna Hindu temple in Spanish Fork, UT. This is a Hindu celebration of spring time and it's another one of those things that if you go to college in Utah, you've gotta experience the thick air, sweet smelling chalk, and the Throwing. I found out that there were about 50,000 people who went to festival that day.

Look at the magic.

This video is property of YouTube.

Property of smugmug.com - found on Google

Property of tripadvisor.com - found on Google

first time hiking the Y

So. One night Derrik and I and 4 of his friends all got together to hike the Y!
It's kinda one of those traditions that you have to do if you're a student at BYU. We had donuts and candy and laughter all along the way. The view is absolutely beautiful up on the mountain. Fun fun fun!

record time and other saturday antics

This weekend was another eventful one. From giving a cheese bagel to a homeless man, my bike breaking down in a strange neighborhood, and eating nachos and sleeping over at Kristi's apartment on Friday night, to cheering on runners of a 5K in the morning, slacklining longboarding in the afternoon, partying on Saturday night, my weekend has been most eventful!

I woke up early morning with all my makeup and clothes on from the night before at Kristi's apartment on Saturday to pick up Derrik's favorite blue powerade drink at Smith's and then ride my bike over to the BYU track, where over 2500 people would finish the Provo Rex Lee 5K run. Whew!

I got there a little late so I wasn't on time to see all the runners start, but I heard the gunshot for the start and saw thousands of people running along the sidewalk by the stadium. I made sure to chain my bike up to a fence and then find my way to the finish line, where others were waiting with neon signs and green colors (for St. Patty's Day) to congratulate their runners. 

Derrik was third place out of hundreds and hundreds of people! He set a personal record and made the run in really good time. I think that's pretty cool :) These pictures are of us at the track where he raced.

 So happy to be with Derrik!

 Haha!

Later that afternoon, Derrik and I went slacklining. Of course, he was a lot better at it than I was but at the very end, I was able to stay up on the line for about 2 seconds! Hoorah! (If you don't know what slacklining is, click here.)

Then we met up with our good friends Julie and Clark and headed over to a party full of board games, barbeque chicken pizza, xbox kinect dance offs, and guitar hero. What a day!

Here's  a video of Derrik longboarding. Cool, huh? :)

temple trip!

During President's Day weekend, my roommates and a couple other girls from my ward went to Annie's house Sandy. Last Sunday we ended up visiting several temples nearby! That's something that could only happen in Utah.

Even though the temple grounds weren't open, we were still able to look and take pictures. Pretty, huh??

It was amazing to drive around the valley and be able to see all 3 temples. Utah is definitely different than Tennessee but it is absolutely a beautiful state. I'm grateful to live so close to so many temples!

Draper Temple

Jordan River Temple

 Oquirrh Mountain Temple (yes that's how you really spell it)

why this was the best birthday ever

Okay.

So I turned 20 last week.

Can I just tell you about my birthday right now?

So pretty much it was the best birthday I've ever had. Starting when I woke up.

I woke up to go to school feeling a little sick ... you know, stuffy nose, stuffy sinuses, etc. I grumbled out of bed and got ready for the day. Then I realized I had woken up late. Okay it's my birthday, I'm just gonna skip my first Spanish class, no biggie. "It's my party, I can cry if I want to!"

I walked into the kitchen. Streamers and balloons and hearts and candy and bigger balloons and more candy, oh my! My roommates had decorated the entire kitchen and living room in celebration of my birthday and of Valentine's Day!

And they had made breakfast! Ahhhh! Chocolate chip pancakes and strawberries and whipped cream, oh my!

I got to open the package I got from my family during breakfast and see all the goodies from home. Then during the day I received several colorful envelopes in the mail from my loving friends and family. I always like getting mail :)

Then I went to work. My boss came in to wish me a happy birthday and tell me that he was very grateful for all my work this semester. That's a big deal, people. Needless to say, I ate those 3 homemade sugar cookies very quickly because boy, were they yummy.

Okay. So that wasn't the end. I got off of work at 5 pm, race home because I knew that at 6, Derrik was coming to pick me up. ((excitement!!))

And guess what. He had made my absolutely most favoritest (yes I know that's not a word) most fabulous dinner for me. Roast, potatoes, carrots, salad, ROLLS, AND there were Izze drinks! My favorite!! And to top it all off, we had strawberry shortcake with delicious strawberries and whipped cream. Yum!

Then we went to a New York Trio concert after dinner. That was way cool. All of the songs were very unique and modern, almost like a movie soundtrack. We made sure to sit where we could see the pianist's fingers tickling the ivories.

I wish I had taken pictures to share! Then we both went to the Clyde building on campus and worked on homework together and then walked home!

So all in all, between breakfast with my roommies, cookies at work, and an amazing dinner and concert, I had a most magnificent, marvelous, absolutely splendiferous birthday.

major announcement

I got accepted in BYU's Communications program!

I will be studying Public Relations.

I will always remember that moment I opened that envelope. It was as close to getting a mission call as I'll probably ever get! I thought, "Whatever happens, is meant to be because I have such a good feeling."

That good feeling turned out to be my dreams coming true.

Oh and ...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thanks to all my wonderful friends who wished me happy birthday too. ♥

fabulous friday festivities

Tonight was one of the best Friday nights I've had in a long time!

Derrik and I drove to the Olympic Oval in Kearns so he could run a 5K. We got lost on the way there due to my amazing directional skills but we still made it just in the nick of time! It was fun giving him a thumbs up and a smile every time he passed me watching on the sidelines.

I bought him his favorite Powerade drink for after the race and he had bought us both Twizzlers! So we had some yummy snacks for on the way home. He also got a way cool medal and T-shirt for the race.

Then we raced back home, got ready for a Valentine's dance and we showed up just in time for when the party  was just getting started. We got a lot of compliments for our matching clothes and I'm pretty sure we were the best dressed couple there :)

So here's some pics of the night - SO fun!

These pictures are from last week!

the picture project

I saw this on another blog and I'm going to do this, too. Every day in February I need to take a picture of one of these things. I know it's the 7th already so I'm just gonna catch up real fast and then continue on.

Exciting, huh?? Then you'll be able to see a little bit more into my daily life.

Keep checking back in! I will be posting all my pictures for this week on this post. (Feb 1st - 7th).

1. your view today - this is what I see from my office window

2. words - this is a calendar I saw ... all kinds of languages!



3. hands - this is a picture I took a few weeks ago of my friend's hands. Can you see the letter on the mountain? :) This was a day that both of us needed some love and listening. this was a good day. I didn't actually take this on the 3rd but since I'm still trying to catch up I think it's okay to post.



pizza pockets and laundry incidents

Hola!

Today I made dinner for myself again ... and I got a little creative.

Last week I made my own pepperoni pizza complete with a sprinkling of basil over the mozzarella cheese on a whole wheat pizza crust. YUM.

Tonight I used the leftovers and instant rolls from a can to make pizza pocket surprises!

You will need:
* one can of crescent rolls
* one small bag of grated mozzarella cheese
* pepperoni
* pizza sauce

Preheat your oven to the temp on the crescent roll can. Open the can of crescent roll dough and ((POP!)) don't let it scare you! Haha. Lay out all the little dough triangles.
Put the sauce, cheese, and pepperoni onto each of the triangles. Put as much as you'd like.
Roll them up and stick 'em in the oven for about 12 ish minutes. The rolls should be golden brown.

Let them cool and enjoy! :)

.............................another funny story ........................

I went to go do my laundry just now thinking that oh yeah it's FHE night, NO ONE is gonna be in the laundry room. This assumption is FALSE.

e v e r y   w a s h e r   w a s   f u l l

except one. on the end. I proceeded to put my clothes in and some girl told me that machine wasn't working.

"NO!!"

Well I might as well put in my $20 into the quarter machine.

*sound of quarters clinking for 5 minutes*

Welp, that's that. Anyone need a quarter?

Before leaving, I saw a guy putting clothes in a dryer. He turned around and I saw his huge silver belt buckle below a tucked-in plaid shirt. Spiffy.

"Dang!" I said. "I like your belt buckle! Are you from the south?"

He smiled at me. "Nope. This is from Hawaii."

Me: "Ohhh..."

Him: "Yeah I served my mission there."

Me: "Ohhh...."

we talked for a few more minutes then I walked out with my dirty laundry and $20 worth of quarters.

Welp. Just your average Monday.

Happy FHE-ing everyone!