FREEDOM!!

Finals.  Are.  Over.  That's all.  I'm done!!!!!  With this semester at least... The depressing part that I choose not to dwell on at this moment is that it all starts over again in a couple of weeks.  On the upside though, it does give me a good excuse to be in Provo.  The place that I love.  But for now--it's Christmastime!!!

Gingerbread Courts

Last weekend.  The weekend right before finals.  But not the one right before Christmas.  The one that you can be guaranteed all of your friends can be in town for.  So naturally, what do you do this weekend?  Throw Christmas parties.  Don't worry, I didn't ahve to thrown one.   But I attended quite a few.  It all started on Thusday night with our racquetball team dinner.  It was a good time, fairly formal (which is odd for a group that meets at 6am wearing shorts and t-shirts), and there was plenty of good ole BYU-catered food.  The best part was that our coaches gave us all jackets!  With our names on them!  They are basically the coolest things ever.  Anyone that knows me well, knows that all I need in life to be happy is a good jacket.  Or a good bag.  Or heck, even a good pair of shoes. :) (Ok, the bottom line is, I'm easy to please...).  So needlesstosay, I was all but thrilled to receive a jacket declaring my status on a sports team to the world.  I think Megan and I have worn them for at least a few minutes every day since we got them. :)  

Friday night wasn't exactly a party I guess, but an event nonetheless.  I went to the Jon Schmidt Christmas concert!!!  This thing is pretty much legend around these parts and Stefanie took the initiative and got tickets for us and our friend Megan Bird.  It was a good time.  Jon Schmidt rocks my world.  Basically.

Saturday was the real kicker.  I spent the entire day at the library attempting to be productive prior to finals week.  I'd say I was successful for the most part.  Originally, I had three parties to attend but lucky for me, one got cancelled.  And honestly, I'm really not crazy popular.  It's just...people like to throw parties that weekend.  So the first one was Cameron's.  I dragged Megan along with me and we bascially just spent the entire time building the coolest gingerbread house I've ever made.  Megan and I, naturally, decided to make a racquetball court.  And with the valiant help of Marcie, we made our wonderful creation. 

We decided to make it a game of iron man (two people against one) with two elves against santa claus.  And I know, Santa Claus is massive.  It's actually quite hysterical I think. That thing with the green m&m as a head is an elf.  Just so you can now appreciate the magnitude of Santa. :)

Here's another view.  From here you can see the spectator stands.  Granted, I've never actually seen any kind of racquetball court with these kinds of stands but hey, it works.  Also, we came up with the idea to have Rudolph ref the match.  And then, innocently, Marcie called him "Rudolph the Reffing Reindeer."  Oh, and NPU of course stands for North Pole University.

And the proud creaters of the coolest gingerbread contraption ever made.  Usually, when I'm handed a bunch of graham crackers and some frosting, I lose all motivation and creativity in about 10 minutes and just start eating candy.  But this bad boy, held my complete attention until the end. :)

From there we left and after wandering around Springville for awhile, we finally found our way back to Monticello.  After finding Brian, the three of us headed over to Kat and Annie's.  Kat and Annie lived with Megan in Monticello last fall.  I spent a few nights on their couch.  So...I guess you could say I know them. :)  It was a fun little gathering though.  We spent the majority of our time there singing Christmas carols at the piano.  It was great.  

On Sunday, after a full day of choir and other assorted musical numbers, Brian and Jen and I headed up to Salt Lake for our Spencer family get together.  It was really great to see everybody.  There are so many little kids running around these days!  We counted and the great-grandchildren have officially overtaken the amount of grandchildren.  And as grandma would say, "There's not a bad one in the bunch!"

All in all, it was a full, festive weekend.  I do enjoy a good Christmas party.  So a weekend full of them was just great.  I can't wait to continue the festivities when I go home in just TWO days!

The Birthday Boy

The day after Thanksgiving was Dave's birthday.  So we of course couldn't let that go by unnoticed.  After a little bit of brainstorming, Jen, Brian and I decided to get Dave what he really wanted for his birthday.  A 5-photo picture frame filled with pictures of his favorite sibling-in laws.  And we had a great time with the photo shoot.  Here's the results.

This one is actually a really cute picture.  I like it a lot.

I can only give Brian credit for the genius of this picture.  He posed it himself.  I still die laughing every time I see this picture.

Before you judge me, let me tell you the story behind this picture.  You know how picture frames come with fake pictures already in them?  Well, the one we got for Dave came with a picture of a little boy doing this exact pose you see me striking.  We thought it would be a fantastic idea to leave the fake picture of the little boy in and add in this one of me copying him.

Brian also gets the credit for posing this picture.  There was just something missing, and then Brian suggested Jen hug a bowl of fake fruit.  Et voila!

Mom also had a fantastic birthday treat lined up for Dave--in the form of a pin and glasses.  To Dave's credit, he wore them both proudly the whole time we were at the tree lot.  

The Giving of Thanks

THANKSGIVING! What a great holiday!  Only Americans could think of that one: "let's have a holiday set aside where all we do is eat and play football one day, and then blow all of our money at the mall the next day!"  I do love Thanksgiving though.  The best part--I got to go home!  Thanks mom and dad. :)  The whole family was in Thanksgiving for turkey day and that was fantastic.  We didn't do a whole lot over the weekend but it was perfect.  We ate, slept in :), watched home videos, watched movies and got our Christmas tree!  We go to a tree lot about 45 minutes from our house and cut down our own tree!  It's super fun.  Last year, it was bitterly cold, so the moderate cold was much easier to deal with this year.  And none of Jen's fingers turned white so that was good. :)  I think we set a record on Christmas tree height this year--11 feet.  Yikes!  But it's a beauty and from what I hear it looks even more amazing all decorated.  Here's some pictures from the weekend.  Enjoy!

On Thanksgiving day, we got a little tired of waiting for the food to be ready so we decided to distract ourselves with a little bit of basketball.  Some of these may be posed....but some really aren't!

Ok, so this one is posed.  I mean...Dave's just really that good.

Style points for Dad.

I was just amazed that went in.

Points to Brian for not settling for a posed picture.  

And yay Sara!

The tree! And those big, strong men carrying it...

This picture is hysterical. I think that Sara, Jen, Dave and I might all have our eyes closed (it was sunny).  And, I just realized today that dad is holding the saw to Brian's neck.  Good one, Dad!

The big day!  Obviously, we are now on to the pie.  And sorry Dave looks so creepy...

Jen and Brian and I all flew out to Chicago together the day before Thanksgiving.  It was uneventful, as most flights are, so I thought, what the heck--let's take some pictures!

And this is Brian wearing all of our luggage tags.  Don't ask.

Twilight: The Movie

Yes, it's true.  I did go see Twilight on opening night, at midnight.  We even drove all the way to South Jordan because it was sold out all over Provo. For those of you who don't know, that's about 45 minutes. Now that's dedication.  The movie was...hilarious.  I think that's the best word for it. Not the greatest acting or special effects I've ever seen, but entertaining.  :)  

Excited for the movie to start, despite the hour.

This is how we felt when it was 12:25 and the movie still hadn't started!

I don't feel like Twilight is very exciting to blog about, but not a whole lot super excited has happended lately.  Other than Thanksgiving, which is so exciting that it gets its own post.

Ten Years Ago...

So about ten years ago, I lived in Springboro, Ohio and met this girl named Molly. I thought she was a little odd but I liked her accent and our families hung out all the time so I figured…we could be friends. After a lot of years of friendship, our families took us away from each other. And now, over four years after our separation, we have been brought back together as roommates. I can’t speak for Molly, but being roommates has been way more fun than I think either of us could have ever imagined. Our parents’ fears of us functioning together as roommates are completely unfounded. :)

This picture is priceless. And basically describes our relationship. :)

I think the best part of being roommates (and I guess having Brian and Kirby in the ward too…) is reliving all of our past years of craziness. Turns out, we were really something. Our blasts from the past include movies we made, golf cart rides we made up, weeks of the tooty tot in the hyperization room after church… it’s great.

This is yet another exciting thing from our past. Molly and I used to sit in Molly's pool and take pictures like this for hours, one pretending to point and the other pretending to be completely shocked at what the other was pointing at. Fun, right? We thought so.

All we are, we are

Just one of the many deep statements transmitted through the music of the one and only Matt Nathanson. I know, most of you probably have no idea who he is. He’s incredible. That’s really all you need to know. A couple weeks ago, a friend tipped me off that he was coming to Salt Lake to perform for a mere $12! So of course, I alerted the forces and we went. Megan and I had to meet the group there considering we were literally running out of a racquetball tournament to get there on time, but luckily we made it in time to even see a little bit of the opening band, The Break and Repair Method. They were actually really good. We bought the CD.

The man himself.

Molly, falling in love with Matt Nathanson.

Matt and his band were pretty incredible. He was a really funny entertaining guy. I think Molly fell in love, and the rest of us just enjoyed seeing along to songs we know only too well. What fun.

Turns out, we had a pretty big group. Who knew?

Also, this concert was at The Avalon. It took a phone call with Mom for that name to really resonate with me. The Avalon is an old movie theater in downtown Salt Lake that my mom used to go to all the time as a kid. Even more exciting, my grandparents went on their first date there! My uncle is an artist and has recently taken to re-doing vintage signs and made one of the Avalon for my grandma and it is now hanging in her kitchen. Oddly enough, we went to visit her the day after the concert , so Brian and I took a picture of ourselves standing outside with the sign. Upon future comparison, we discovered that my uncle is a genius and replicated the sign almost exactly. Just a fun fact.

And maybe if I have time I’ll try to figure out how to get some of Matt Nathanson’s music to stream on my blog…

Harold B. Lee and his library

We spend so much time in the BYU library that we've given it many nicknames. The full name is the Harold B. Lee Library. Some simply call it harold or HBLL (or "hibble"). Anyway, we love it. Kind of. Althought I haven't frequented it quite as much this year as I did last fall, it is still somewhat of a nightly ritual for a group of us to meet in the fishbowl, backpacks and laptops in tow, to head off for some studying til midnight. It's funny that in Monticello at least, going to the library is somewhat of a social event. On the 4th floor, juvenile section, the ward congregates and usually that amounts to us all being much less productive then we really should be. But what can you do. At least we're trying, right?

This is Megan pointing threateningly and vowing that if the picture taking didn't stop she would take immediate action. Scary...

And just as a random side story...we totally caught Zach, Brian and Kirby taking personality quizzes online the other night. The best part was, this is really the position we found them in--all huddled together on one bed around Brian's computer. I love that Zack is so into it that he can't even look away from the screen for a picture. :) Oh man, I love you boys.

Sundays

Happy Sunday! Sundays are good days. I have church at 8:30 am. That is early. But believe it or not, Sundays are my day to sleep in! So, church is over at 11:30 and then the rest of the day is yours!! Of course, I never really get the time to do everything I plan to do even though I have all day. But probably my favorite aspect of Sundays is the excuse to do nothing and feel guilt-free. Generally I blog, journal, read, visit teach/get visit taught, eat food with friends and just relax. These are all things that I never have time for any other day of the week. So really, I love Sundays.

After ward prayer, I guess everyone is finally just kind of antsy from taking it easy all day and we usually get together and play games or something. A few weeks ago, we were in a particularly crazy mood and had a little bit of fun taking some pictures. We also played some rousing rounds (how about that alliteration??) of made-up word speed scrabble. The only rule is that the words have to make sense phonetically. It's a great time, especially for people like us that tend to get big thrills out of little things...

No, you're not crazy. Zyn, Zihls, gloicki and biobi are not real words. But legal--because you can pronounce them!

Somehow, speed scrabble evolved into looking at pictures off of my camera while plugged into a TV. And of course, you can't have a camera plugged into a TV without taking pictures while everyone can see themselves on the big screen. It's like seeing people wave at themselves at megatrons at basketball games, you know? Funny, right?

Basically, it was a really fun night with some of my favorite people in the whole world--notice I said some of my favorite people; no one get offended please... :)

Halloween 2k8

Halloween being on a Friday night really was pretty anticlimatic for me.  Since it was Friday, pretty much everyone and their dog decided that they were going to have a Halloween party.  I myself got invited to about 12 on facebook (not to say I'm popular, that's just facebook for ya) and do you know how many I went to?  Zero.  That's right.  It was a pretty fun night regardless.  Brian, Jen, Molly, Megan and I went out to Aunt Evie's and Uncle Gary's last night.  It was so fun.  They really go crazy with their Halloween decorations and when we got there at about eight, half the neighborhood was over there for the annual event.  This year I actually remembered to take my camera and got some pictures of the best parts.

Evie and her look-alike.  Jen, Brian and I thought Evie's friend was Evie for about 15 minutes.  It finally took Brian going up to her and asking timidly, "Evie?" for us to realize that it was indeed not Evie.  You see, our confusion was justified because usually Evie wears that costume.  This year, she decided to be the white witch.  Boy, it was confusing.  But they both looked good.

Giant eyeballs hanging from the front porch.  A must at any good halloween party.

Everybody's costumes: Megan is the female form of Waldo (aka-Wanda), Jen is obviously...a package of deliciousness, Brian is none other than Kramer from Seinfeld, Molly is a kangaroo (complete with a joey...) and last but not least, I put my New Zealand souvenirs to use and was an All Blacks rugby player.

It's a monster!!  No just kidding---it's Uncle Gary!

There was also a man dressed in a gorilla suit that scared the life out of us girls.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of him.  So sad.  The rest of the night, we basically made a party of not going to parties.  :)  We got shakes and played Mario Party.  Oh man, talk about flashbacks to elementary/junior high/high school.  It was fun.  Molly has also recently become obsessed with Alias, which is just fine with me.  So we stayed up until about 2 watching the first season.  Gotta love it.

Racquetball

Again, I apologize.  I'm sure there must be some of you out there wondering if I'm still alive.  Well, no worries.  I am.  And I'm here to tell you about my latest adventure.  Last weekend, the BYU racquetball team (of which I am part, if any of you didn't know that) had a tournament in Logan.  It was a blast!  I love racquetball and I love the people on the team.  So really, there was nothing to lose.  We all met at the courts at 2 to take the good ole BYU vans up to Logan.  The ride was hot, squishy and just on the whole uncomfortable, but Megan and I watched 21 on my iPod.  So that helped.  

The guys watching some r-ball.

Once we got to the courts in Logan, I had to just sit around for about three hours and watch other matches before I actually got to play.  When I finally got to play though, it was fantastic.  I played really well and actually won every single match I played all weekend.  Except for one.  I played three girls on Friday night before showering, getting some Betos (a Mexican restaurant known for its shadiness but with delicious breakfast burritos, especially at 12 am--which is what time it happened to be. ) and going to spend the night at the highest house in Logan.  No joke.  By some random association (a friend of a friend's bishop or something like that...) we ended up spending the night, really only a few hours, at this amazingly huge house.  There was a racquetball court, climbing wall and drinking fountain in the basement.  So of course, what does the entire women's racquetball team do the second we get in that house?  You guessed it, our

 coach finally had to kick us off the racquetball court at about 1am because we were being too loud.

The next morning they started the doubles game.  My partner, Hillary and I played well and won both our matches.  Then came the women's semi finals.  I won my first match against a girl from Utah State.  And then--the championship game.  Against:  Megan Robinson.  Figures, right?  Fighting for first place against my best friend?  This always happens to us. Well this time folks, she won out.  13-15 and 14-15.  Some of the most intense racquetball I have ever played.  So, kudos to Megan.  I'll get her next time...

We drove back to Provo Saturday afternoon, got some lunch on the racquetball team and arrived sore and exhausted just in time for...nothing really.  Our return to Provo was very anti-climatic.  Turns out everybody was out of town last weekend.  What'd ya know.

Now for some pictures from the weekend.  I kind of appointed myself team historian (at least for this trip/until I get tired of it) and therefore, took quite a few pictures.  It was a good time.  Enjoy.

The morning after our stay in that rad house.

I know it looks like Megan is stealing the donuts, but really, we're just happy that they're there.

I think all the greatest fashion trends originated during the height of everyone's boredom...kind of like this one.

Coach Val.  And her baby.

Megan and I took about 50 pictures like this and I was unfortunately forced to pick just one.  They are all hysterical.  Or maybe just to us.

Jessica, Charlotte (our very mature and serious team captain) and Whitney.

Birthdays

In the last two weeks Russell, Molly, Kirby and Ben have all had birthdays in the past couple of weeks. I already posted about Russell's birthday but Molly's was a complete success. I think most of the credit should go to Alyssa for the awesome party prep/food. A ton of people showed up, including Jen for a few minutes and a bunch of random people from Springboro. It was super fun. We played some classic teenage games that surprisingly, were a really good time. So, here's some candid shots from the par-tay. Enjoy.

Yes, it is what you think. That is a giraffe made out of rice krispie treats. I know right! Oh the advantages of living with an art major.

Alyssa is also the mastermind behind the most amazing cake I have ever tasted. I think she's made it about five times in the past week or so, and it's still good.

On Friday night, we opened Molly's presents! It was fun and the faces Molly made while she opened them was probably the best. A little confused but...excited!... about a planner. She really was excited, whoever gave this to her--don't be offended. I just caught her in a passing moment of perplexity.

And this is a direct quote: "I've always wanted my own bandaids!"

And that was Molly's birthday.