Raining on our parade.

Remember when I used to blog? Yeah that was cool.

So I have like six blog posts started....but not posted. I'm working on it ok.




This is Andy.
This is when he got home from his mission. He is such a good example to me. He wrote us faithfully every week. I think I kind of grew up while he was gone. When he came home I think he didn't know who I was. But then we lived next door to each other for a semester of college and I'm pretty sure the only meals he ever ate were when he was at my house. :)



He's a tough cowboy and he knows how to work hard. He knows how to fix stuff when it breaks. The other night I came home to swan valley and when I was walking in from the car I almost got eaten by a raccoon. It was scary. And then he went and shot it. He knows how to take care of the people he loves.



And this is the girl he is going to marry in two days. They are so in love. More than anyone I know. I love them. Really he is older than me but I have always kind of felt like he was my little brother. And now he's getting married.

No. I'm not crying. Ok maybe a little.

Good News and Bad News

Bad news first. My roommate is leaving in a few short hours to go to Europe for an entire month.

Good news. There is a certain boy that will no doubt be around to keep me company. :)

Sunshine and surfboards.

So I got to spend a whole weekend with my sister in one of the coolest places I have ever been.
Lake Mead. It was so cool. We spent the whole day on the lake learning to wake surf. SOOO fun. We all got a little bit of sun and loved every minute of it. Courtney (far right) and I went exploring. There are all these mussels in the lake. It's so weird. They all attach to the rock walls just under the surface of the water. They are kind of freaky. So when I say we went exploring I mean I went exploring and she floated me around on the tube. LeeAnn came all the way from AZ and we were so happy to see her. The weekend consisted of marshmallow roasting, Cory singing I Believe In a Thing Called Love for us around the campfire, tan lines, new swimming suits, Self and Glamour, running out of gas and getting a flat tire, walking through smoky casinos, and smelling like campfire smoke the whole time. It was a blast. However I did miss a certain boy while I had no cell service. :)

Sleep. Who needs it?

So here it is. Two o clock in the a.m. and I am sitting on my computer unable to sleep. There are a few good reasons why I'm finding it hard to let my brain shut off for a few hours tonight...but we'll get to that later.

Things I want to talk about......

• My job was completely crazy and sucked my social life away for the last few months...but I loved it. :) A few things I learned while braving the treacherous weather to make other people happy.....1. There is a huge difference between a hippie and a dirty hippie. 2. Weed smells like a skunk. 3. Sunblock is your friend unless you like the thought of skin cancer. 4. Some people actually DO get to ski for a living. 5. I can basically predict when a storm is coming for days in advance. It's just a feeling you get. 6. It's actually ok to be environmentally friendly and recycle. No one will make fun of you. 7. Sometimes those annoying boys that flirt with me while I was punching their tickets turn out to be awesome guys. :) Just watch out for the ones wearing tie dye.
  
• When you get locked out of your house...the doggie door actually does come in handy. Just don't tell anyone you had to crawl through it. And lock it at night so creepy stalker people or skunks can't get in too.
• You know you have been away too long when the thought of jumping back into the rexburg bubble actually sounds appealing.
• I am setting a few really good goals this semester...I'll post on them later I am sure.
  
• So I was logging on to my computer the other day and checking out a few blogs I read pretty regularly and I was pretty disappointed to find that there were no new posts. But then I realized I am a total hipocrite and I never ever post anymore. So I'm going to do better guys. I promise. My life is less repetitive and slightly less interesting now so I will have much more time to write about it, but it won't be as exciting. So sorry. :)
• Something one of my teachers said this week in class that I kind of loved....."If you have enough time to plaigarize well enough to not get caught, you have enough time to write the dang paper yourself."
  
• And now the most important.....well actually I think I am going to keep this a secret for a few more posts. It's a big deal but not big enough to start a new blog or something.....details coming soon. Promise.

I'm really happy and I am loving life. So I'll be sharing soon. :) For now the sleep is creeping into my eyes and I am not going to fight it. More tomorrow.

Coming soon...

Blog posts about-


My job.

Andy.

Bleach blonde.

Speed scrabble and Nerts.

The Doggie Door Incident.

White Chocolate Truffles.

Just wait and see..............................

Livvy.

So I have decided to do a little project something like the self portrait project...only backwards. I am going to delve into my archives of family photos...the ones that I have taken anyway and share with all (three) of you the reasons that I love my family so much. I am going to start with the youngest sibling and work my way to the oldest. (I think they are like middle aged at this point?) This is more for me than anything but whatever. Here goes nothing.

Emma Olivia

Always the cowgirl. Can be tough when she wants.Beautiful. Love it when she lets me do her hair..which is not very often.

Winner of many trophies. Awesome skiier.

Good friend. Always willing to play in the snow.

Super talented. Awesome piano player. Brave enough to play at her winter concert.

Loves animals. Seriously knows everything when it comes to baby animals.

Always one to ham it up for the camera. Has also been in a few plays. Off-broadway. :)

Really? I would be typing foot?

Before I start the real post...

So I recently got text messaging and I am still having a really hard time figuring out how to type. For example, just now I was texting this cute boy that I work with. I was trying to write don't...and my predictive text thought I wanted to write foot. That is just not a word you want to accidentally send to a cute boy.



I just moved to a new town a few weeks ago and I have spent a lot of hours alone since then which has made me really pay attention to the small details. I have a roommate, but she has a boyfriend which means that she is rarely here for more than ten minutes at a time. I'm not actually home that much either (working six days a week has it's disadvantages) so mostly just at nights. But here are a few things that my world is revolving around right now.

Calvin. My roommates cat. Scratch that. My roommates mountain lion. Sometimes he's my friend and I like him. (This is usually when he's sleeping.) Sometimes I just want to drown him in the fish tank. But then I would just have to clean up the mess because my roommate wouldn't see it for a week. He likes to sit on one of our dining room chairs and watch the fish. He seriously can sit there for hours.

My purple fuzzy lamp. It's seriously my favorite belonging. Well it's at least tying with my ipod.

Sorry so blurry..but what can ya do? My new purple coat. Why yes actually, purple is my new favorite color thanks for asking.

These blue earrings. I seriously wear them every day to work and everyday ten million people tell me they love my earrings. My secret is that my little sis gave them to me. She obviously has better fashion sense than I do. :)

I donated blood the other day. For the second time ever. It was awesome. And this is my sweet old green chair.
This is the view from my "office". :)


Isn't it a great life?

Nineteen things I love about December

my mother's snowman plates . sparkly christmas lights . midnight sledding . grandma's sugar cookies . snow days . birthday wishes . ten card rummy . anticipation . fuzzy sweaters . caroling on christmas eve . baby it's cold outside . stockings . homemade christmas decorations . remembering why we celebrate christmas . snow angels . chocolate kisses . real kisses . family . peace on earth

Oh roommates.

So these girls are my roommates. And this post is mostly for them, although I think it applies to other subjects as well. I guess you could say I am feeling just a little sad today. So this is for them.

First, I met both of them at the beginning of my second semester at school. I met Kelsey (on the right) first. She was right across the hall and the first time I talked to her she was putting up a bulletin board full of pictures of all her friends. My first impression of her was that she knows how to be a good friend. And it turns out I was right. She is loyal and caring. She is smart and shares good advice. I honestly can not get dressed in the morning without her fashion advice. Something I have learned from her is how to be more assertive. She is a go-getter but in a good way. She knows how to read people and sometimes I think she knows me better than I do.

Courtney's story is a little different. The first time I met her I had just gotten home from dance and she was coming over to look at our apartment because she was thinking about moving into our empty bedroom. She thought I was a dork because she comes in and I am totally still wearing my purple leotard and pink tights. I'm really glad she still decided to move in after that. She is the kind of friend that everyone needs to have. Her perspective on life is so different from mine and it reminds me of the things that are important in life. She is happy and carefree. She is the kind of friend who backs you up no matter what. Also she lets me borrow her shoes. :) In the last two semesters she has taught me that it's ok to be yourself no matter what.

Our personalities are slightly different from each other but we all love One Tree Hill and sushi and don't love the "spritzer girls". Sometimes we disagree, but we will be best friends for a long time to come and down the road when we all have husbands and babies we will get together and reminisce on the good old days back in college.

For example:
Staying up until the sun came up writing papers and doing homework and throwing vegetables across the parking lot at the tuscany girls.
Driving to Moses Lake and getting to play in the water all day like it was summer. Only it wasn't.
Going cliff jumping or floating the canal or whatever we could do to avoid class in the summer.
Watching all four seasons of One Tree Hill and obsessing over Prison Break.
The Office.
Crying and laughing together.
The Cocoa Bean and Wingers and the oriental chicken.
Making banana cookies and bread and cake until like two a.m.
Boys, boys and more boys.
Thinking that getting a cat was a smart idea.
Laughing and rolling our eyes every time anyone said anything about my crazy hair.
Getting so used to each others ring tones that when someone elses phone rang, it felt like it was yours.

I'm going to miss you guys. April isn't too far away I guess.

Best/Worst

So today I conquered two of my greatest fears.

Backup..I need to provide a little background info here for you to understand the extent of my accomplishments. I would like to think that I am very rarely unnerved (although I did have a little bit of a meltdown when I had to experience "The Brain Bucket") however, I have two major drawbacks. Drum roll please....

1. I am gutless when it comes to heights. I hate them. I know my place in this world and it is very near to the ground.

2. Needles. Being. Poked. Into. My. Arm.


Which leads me back to why I started writing this in the first place...today I got in a fight with that strange part of my brain that tells me to tremble in the face of fear, and guess what?

I won.

I am starting work very soon at a much-beloved ski resort in the beautiful rocky mountains. And today I had to go to orientation which was slightly boring and repetitive until the ski patrol needed the rest of us to be their guinea pigs for the afternoon. So here's the story. They were have a trial run of emergency evacuation from the ski lift so they lined us up and sent us all up the hill like it was normal. So there we were..dangling much to far from the icy snow for my liking, freezing our noses off in the biting wind, watching the patrolmen as they go down the line, lowering the other employees in front of us to the ground. And then it was our turn and at this point I am shakin' in my boots. Literally. Let me explain what was actually happening. They threw a little rope over the lift line and at on end is a bar with a piece of wood hooked to the bottom which you are supposed to wiggle in between your legs so that you are sitting on it. And then wrap this measly little rope under your arms. So this is all fine and so far I am doing ok..just breathe..it's not that far down I had to remind myself..it's completely safe. Yeah right. Except for the fact that the only thing keeping you from plummeting toward the ground as soon as you jump is the guy sitting on the rope on the ground. Real safe guys.

And then I have to lift myself out of the chair. Possibly falling to my death.

At which point I turned into a total basket case. SO embarrassing. Everyone was already on the ground at this point. Literally my chair was the last one. And I froze. I couldn't do it. And poor Mason who was left up there with me. I'm sure he would have liked nothing more than to push me out of the chair and get out of there himself. But he was so calm and nice and got me to start breathing at least. Ugh. And my boss was at the bottom and half a dozen other important people that work at the resort.

And I had to be the girl who freaked out on the lift. But the point is..I did it. I finally worked up the courage to push myself off the lift. I composed myself and took a leap of faith and lived to tell about it. The worst part is..everyone else lived to tell about it too. And they will be telling about it for the rest of the season. So now instead of being the spunky, smiley, slightly-out-of-control liftee girl, I am going to be known as the girl who flipped out on the emergency e-vac drill. Spectacular.

But that isn't even the end of my day. The next part is much shorter and much less interesting but still a huge thing for me. I donated blood. I sat there while this half-cute(another story entirely) little flobotomist jabbed a huge needle into my "awesome vein". That's what she told me..that I have awesome veins. Not sure how to feel about that. I think it might be slightly amazing. But maybe I just let it go to my head. And I didn't even get nauseous or light-headed or faint-hearted. It was fantastic. And then they gave me juice.

It was one of the best/worst days of my life. I am a superhero.