26 November 2009

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

So tonight, I stayed out next door playing Monopoly with my neighbor and two friends. It was me and three guys, a far-too long board game, a few too many M&M's, and lots of fun. Toward the end, I started losing pretty badly. But, I still had two monopolies, and some cash. I landed on my neighbor's property. I asked him what I owed, and he told me something ridiculous like $1150. I replied, "How about $60...and I'll wiggle my eyebrows at you!" He said okay, and it was awesome. Ha! For the rest of the game, the other two guys were remarking about how they'd like to be able to get away with something like that but K-Money would never allow it. I love being a girl.

Also, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope y'all are celebrating in a totally rockin' way! Thanks to all for being fantastic people. Thank you for being the strong and solid examples that you are. Thank you for the kindness and generosity you have shown to me. Thank you for loving me even when I'm at my worst. Thank you for allowing me to see the light and the love of my Savior Jesus Christ more clearly through your thoughts, words, and actions. Thank you for being you. :) I love you all!

22 November 2009

Because it's the little things...

Sometimes, it's just the little fantastic things that make my world go round. Here's one for the books:

Yesterday morning, I was putting on my shoes - my old and ratty manly shoes that I love so dearly. They were hand-me-downs from my little brother (hand-me-ups, then?) 4 and a half years ago, and they are certainly well-worn - and I thought to myself, "I really need new shoelaces. These ones are about to die... I'll have to remember to put that on my shopping list at some point or something..."

Fast forward to 11 o'clock last night. Melissa and I had to make a last-minute Saturday night WalMart run. When I parked, I noticed some small plastic bag with something black in it by my back tire. I didn't think anything of it - thought it was just a piece of trash or something... Fast forward again to when we were finished shopping. We come out and I was loading the stuff in the back of my car, when I again noticed the little bag. For some reason I can't explain, I bent down and picked it up (who picks up trash in a WalMart parking lot at midnight??!)... Guess what it was? A brand spankin' new pair of black shoelaces. I kid you not. My life is way more than average...

09 November 2009

This is my brain on caffeine...

I am supposed to be working on approximately 17.35 million things right now, none of which include updating my blog. So, naturally, that is what I'm doing... [And on caffeine to boot! Oops...] I'm putting up a bunch of pictures. And they are amazing. And they detail aspects of my life recently... Or, not so recently. Whatever. And they're all terribly out of order and random and crazy - but that's my life for ya! :)

On a completely unrelated note, and before I start in on the pictures, I'd liked to just state for the record that my new favorite thing is the bump in the middle of University Avenue as you're crossing it on Bulldog. While it's rare for me to catch the bump when I'm running late to school or when I'm coming home, because of traffic (you have to hit it going strong to make it the funnest, you can't have been stopped at the light), I'll catch it good when I'm going to campus in the wee small hours of the morning... And I love it. It's rather like a small roller coaster. And this evening I maybe even raised my hands in the air and let out a little holler as I went over it. I'm cool like that.

Tonight for FHE we played Ultimate Frisbee in the church parking lot. I'm an FHE mom again this semester. Have I told you that? It's pretty much super fun. I got a new husband yesterday, and we met for the first time tonight. Sweet. And don't even worry about how I made several of the scoring catches for our team. It was a good night, and I'm happy about the little things that can make life a little more bearable.

Anyway... Pictures! Keep in mind that these all come from my cell phone. Awesome.

Here's one of my favorite oldest younger brother, who is leaving on his mission (Brazil Porto Alegre North) soon! I can hardly believe it! This was taken last Christmastime. He's wearing his helmet, so we don't need to worry. This picture makes me giggle every single time I see it.
And...oh, here's a picture of the shadow that our front door makes on the wall sometimes. Isn't that kind of creepy and awesome? It's left over from pre-Halloween shenanigans. Heh heh heh...

Oh! My fantastic roommates and neighbors and I went to dinner on Friday night at Pirate Island. They had a [cute-as-all-get-out] balloon guy there, and he made me this monkey. Pretty sweet, eh?

This is what happens when your neighbors leave their door unlocked while they're out... Yes, that is their coffee table, in our living room, and, yes, that's broken glass. Ha! I hate it when pranks come back to bite you in the butt. But apparently they didn't like the table anyway...so we really did them a favor...

Oh, more Halloween shenanigans. It's not real blood, I promise. But it is really my handprint. Meliss and I are so tricksy.

Another bit of the fake blood. And my handprints. Yum!

Oh, and there's me. This was taken at some obscene hour of the morning. Doesn't the 'blood' look real? I love it.
Here's my neighbor, Seth, at the ward Halloween party. He dressed up as a Ghostbuster. He had his backpack all decked out, and his laptop was in it... He'd attached the mouse to the vacuum hose (of his terribly attractive and rather fantastic and lovely babe-neighbors), and set up a fancy schmancy little powerpoint so that it played different sounds when he left-clicked and right-clicked. So, you know, he could aim his little sensor-thingy-majig at us and see if we were safe or not. Solid.
Here is my fantastic roommate, Beck.br. She decorated this cutie-patootie little jack-o-lantern cookie. Also solid.
This is what I sometimes do in Maple when I'm bored with doing my Algebra exploration on the factorability of (a^n-b^n). The expression maybe matches my feelings at the time...
This picture is of me and my neighbor, Kevin, when we went to go see his roommate, Daniel, in Jekyll and Hyde (Or...Hekyll and Jyde, if you're Beck.br) up in Lehi. It was an awesome performance, and we had a rockin' time. We also had seats in the front and center. Be jealous.
Another shot of our Jekyll and Hyde night. Please believe me when I tell you that I have some of the greatest roommates everrrr.
Point proven.
Here's a shot of our melting pumpkin just days before Halloween. He almost made it the whole time. But he was pretty soggy and leaking a bit by the time we had to dispose of him...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I love Andrew. This is his sporting his true colors. At Corner Pocket, no less. Which, you know, may or may not be my favorite guys' apartment ever.
And...let's see. Here's a picture of the mountains. Which I love. This is my favorite time of evening, during one of my favorite times of year for the colors on the mountains. [Though, snowy season is coming up, which means it's almost time for one of my favorite games: Find the Y! I'm so good at that game it's not even funny...].
Rainbow! Outside our apartment. There were some pretty fantastic rainbows during late summer and early fall this year.
Our cute little pumpkin before he melted into oblivion.
And...my artistry with the pumpkin guts. My favorite is the nest. I'm pretty sure that's all I ever used to build with play-dough, too. I just really love the motion my thumb makes when sort of hollowing out the inside of the nest. Plus, when you've got pumpkin seeds for eggs, you can't go wrong.
Me and Nate. Again, L-O-V-E the Corner Pocket boys.
My fantastic and studly former home teacher. And the Corner Pocket tire swing in the background.
Yeah. That's me.
Yeah, that's also me. More of a true-colors me though. :) Don'tcha love it?
Ha! Andrew again. He makes me laugh.
Check this out. It's a Program spotlight for Response [the service program I work with]. See those three little pictures at the bottom? The ones that say Program Directors of the Month? Well, those are pictures of the super amazing David Gelder and Steven Gale, along with me [a picture of me posing next to a picture of me? Fantastic.]. Remember how this is in the Wilk, right by the ballroom? And remember how it's been up there since April? I'm pretty much famous at BYU right now is all I'm tryin' to say...
This is Kristina. She is one of the other program directors for Response. This is on our Fall retreat, and getting very few hours of sleep at Springhaven. Haha. She's so great!
I love my roommate.
Kaylee! I love my niece. This was taken a few days after she was born.
Sacred Grove. Have I posted this picture before? Maybe. But that's okay. It's one of my favorites.
Also one of my favorites: me with my cousin, Reagan. Yeah, that awesome open-mouth smile runs in the family.
I don't know why I'm still awake... This is bad news. I need to get back to preparing my lessons for tomorrow morning and writing my papers and get some sleep. Peace!