As of Lately

Time seems to be flying by and life has been getting crazy busy. But I'm having a ton of fun! ...So pretty much March has been a blast.

My ward went sledding at Soldier Hollow...seriously SO MUCH FUN!

I highly recommend going sometime in your life.

Kenzie left me for a week to go home (that lucky girl) for spring break. Surprisingly it wasn't that weird because I was used to being by myself all last year. But I became closer to a lot of people in my ward and now we hang out all the time. Gotta love freshman :)

Kenz had me get snapchat so we've added that to our list of social media. I'm not very good at it haha! It really makes you think about your facial expressions and how you react to different things. 

Jake took me up to Bridal Veil Falls. It is beautiful up there and I'm sure it's even more so in the summer/fall. There were still quite a bit of snow, but we hiked up the waterfall and managed to make it back down safely. (I fell about 5 times...embarrassing haha!)

March Madness has begun and it is always possible to find a TV on with games playing all day. 

We had some absolutely gorgeous summer weather and it felt delightful not to have to wear a jacket outside. It snowed this weekend, but I think the warmth is returning. We are looking forward to going climbing!

On one of these nice days I decided to take a walk up to Rock Canyon because I was definitely having climbing withdrawals. There are so many fun memories up there from the fall. There is just something that is so peaceful about being out in nature all by yourself. I guess refreshing or soothing would be a good word.

Sometimes I just get in these moods where I just want to try new recipes. And obviously, I go to pinterest to satisfy this desire. Since St. Patrick's Day was coming up, Emily and I made Shamrock Shakes. delicious!

http://www.sheknows.com/food-and-recipes/articles/952069/shamrock-shake-recipe

We also attempted to make rainbow jello, but that didn't exactly work out. And last, we made a no back snickers pie. Loved it!

http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2011/09/01/awesome-no-bake-snickers-pie-for-labor-day/

On St. Patrick's Day morning I had Lucky Charms that were in my awesome package from my mom. That is definitely one of my favorite cereals!

I got new scriptures! I've had the same ones for 12 years, ever since I turned 8. I've been doing this challenge:

And I've been doing this awesome Easter Countdown based off of The Living Christ. Here's the link:

http://chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com/2012/03/living-christ-30-day-easter-countdown.html#.UVC7Gxw4uuI

This past weekend Emily had a fun game night with lots of snacks! I made a flower out of my m&m's.

 and afterwards David came over and we made balloon rockets. They were way fun! I won :) But David gets the award for being the best at blowing up balloons. I couldn't do it for my life. And my cheeks hurt so bad! There's always a lot of cracking up when David and I get together. That night was no exception. I even tried facing away from him and going in another room so I could concentrate on my balloon, but it was a fail. Until the next morning when I decided to try again. And I took a picture as proof!

Saturday, Emily and I got to go up to Salt Lake for the Orchestra at Temple Square's Spring Concert. Beforehand we took a tour of the Conference Center from Emily's Great Uncle. I love the Conference Center and can't wait for General Conference in a couple weeks! I think my favorite parts were the rooftop and the Book of Mormon Gallery. 

We then met up with my grandma, walked over to City Creek and had dinner. I had Chick-Fil-A for the first time and it was very good! And I haven't lost my cherry stem tying touch...

The concert was in the tabernacle and we arrived pretty early and had great seats. I enjoyed the whole thing and it really made me miss orchestra. I think my favorite song though was the Dvorak. I can't imagine playing  symphonies and concertos like they did...they are SO long! The intermission was much needed haha! It was so fun to be with grandma too! Hopefully I'll be able to see her again before I leave on my mission. Emily and I took the frontrunner home. It was definitely an adventure getting to the station but we made it safe and sound. 

she looks GOOD!

LOVE jumping pictures :)

model status

Kenzie was patiently waiting for us to get home and we made dessert for my sunday dinner, listened to music, watched a movie, and then took a while to settle down and go to sleep. Way too much talking and giggling haha! Let's just say it was a long night...

We woke up for church and even "graduated" from temple prep. We left shortly after church to go to Spanish Fork for Alli's mission farewell. It was so fun to be in a family ward and listen to her speak. She's gonna be an awesome missionary. We went to her house after for some yummy food and then made our way back home. 

love these girls!

Who knew it would be so difficult to get just one good picture...

 I guess it just shows his personality. But seriously when he finally smiled good, I wasn't anymore because I was so tired of doing it the whole time!

I was having an apartment over for dinner and only had about 30 min. to prepare everything. Shortly after I got home, Emily showed up at my door and asked if I needed any help. She was a lifesaver! The dinner went really well and the dessert was a success! 

Chocolate chip cookies, oreos, and brownies with vanilla ice cream all in one. What more could you ask for? Definitely a must try.

http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/new-recipes/ultimate-chocolate-chip-cookie-n-oreo-fudge-brownie-bar.html

And if that wasn't enough for a busy day, I finished it off by roving. FUN STUFF! 

Last night, we went to the basketball game after playing a nice little game of frisbee keepaway for fhe. Love basketball, love friends, love BYU. It was a good night. 

sisters :)

oh jake...

don't really know what's going on here haha!

Now we enter the phase of "I'm not allowed to be in the picture so I'm just going to take the picture..."

Yeah, for some reason this happened multiple times this weekend. 

The first being when we met up with good ol' Kado at Cafe Rio. Kenz and I took the bus. I haven't done that since last fall semester and I never paid with cash so it was a bit of an interesting experience. Kenz made fun of me because she is a pro. But it was a blast to catch up with him and talk about the mish. Yes, we go into the MTC on the same day and are both speaking spanish! lo maravilloso es eso? (thank you google translate) My spanish skills are lacking at the moment. 

aren't they just the cutest best friends you've ever seen?! LOVE them!

Next was at the basketball game when we didn't want to ask a random person to take our picture so I got volunteered to do the honors...

what a good lookin' group

Well I think that just about does it for march. Jam packed full of FUN!

The Worst Part About Being Sick Is...

you can't taste your food! Becca made us some cookies yesterday and I'm sure they were delicious but I honestly couldn't taste any of it. I would fail any taste test for sure. What's the point of eating if you can't enjoy it?

On the plus side, I went to bed 4 times yesterday. Mostly to make up for the lack of sleep the night before, but hey, sleep is good.

High fever, runny/stuffy nose, therefore can't breathe, major headache, little sore throat, muscle aches, gotta love it.

Also, it's like 60 degrees outside. Hello Spring!!! And I was beyond freezing all day. What a bummer! So I'm hoping for a quick recovery because I want to actually enjoy the rest of the beautiful week.

But today is a little bit better and I think the fever is mostly gone. I was wearing a t-shirt and spandex last night and was still burning up like no other. Too hot with the covers on, too cold with the covers off, such a dilemma. David tried to get my mind off of it...didn't work, but I appreciate the effort.

Here's to staying hydrated :)

Love This

We had stake conference this weekend and it was fabulous! Except it was extremely nice and sunny outside but that's ok because we got to enjoy it for the rest of the day :) Anyways, the stake president shared this video on the saturday afternoon session. Not only did I think it was great because I love climbing, but because of their amazing attitude, determination, and passion. Enjoy :)

It's a Good Day

AMEN! 

Today is a fabulous day! Nothing in particular has happened. But I have been quite productive and that always makes it seem like a good day! 

-I got to talk to an awesome 3 year old this morning

-I got to take my time getting ready for the day

-I listened to an amazing devotional about personal revelation (one of my favorite subjects) One of the apostles calls this time in our lives the decade of decisions. I couldn't agree more. Gotta love being 20!

-I ate a delicious Greek wrap for lunch

-I didn't have to wear a jacket today! It is a really nice temperature and the sun is shining! Short sleeves...LOVE it!

-I think I'm going to go play the piano for a while. My favorite :)

RA Business

Okay...this happened like almost a month ago, but I haven't gotten around to finishing the post until now haha!

Last weekend was packed full of RA stuff!

Friday night was Mr. Heritage. I went last year as well, but it seemed like there were way more people there this year. It was great!

I then came back and roved. It was a pretty chill night. But, the next morning we had to be up and ready by 9 to go to RA retreat up at Spring Haven. It was absolutely beautiful up there with all the snow. Definitely something you see on a postcard. We started out playing some get to know you games and then had a little intro talk. Julie Franklin spoke about how important we are and the difference we can make. She shared three stories, one of which was about her mission, the next about some crazy freshman boys, and the last was about this quote from Man of La Mancha...

"I've been a soldier and a slave. I've seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I've held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no brave last words, only their eyes, filled with confusion, questioning "Why?" I don't think they were wondering why they were dying, but why they had ever lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? To surrender dreams - -this may be madness; to seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness! But maddest of all - -to see life as it is and not as it should be."

 I wish I would have had paper with me so I could have taken notes, but it was fantastic. We need to live each day of the fullest and see what we can do to make the world a little better, even if we just affect one person. I think we have more influence than we may think we do.

We then broke off into groups and listened to more talks. One of which was call The Vision. The speaker spoke about the origin of the handkerchief in Louisiana, where he's from, and then used it to talk about how different people use their gifts.

Some people don't know that they have a gift.
Some know what their gift is, but they don't use it
Some use their gift to rob others (put the handkerchief around his neck and mouth like a robber)
Some use their gift to see what they can take from others
Some use their gift to serve (put the handkerchief on his arm like a waiter)

He said that most of us RAs are the type that use our gift to serve and that sometimes we often get so caught up in doing things for others, that we forget to do things for ourselves. He then had us think of one gift that we can give to the RAs that we work with. And then we had to write down a gift that we were going to give to ourselves that week. The vision is that we matter. We are just as important as anyone else.

He told us about an object lesson that he did with his kids. His little boy needed help getting up on a table. So one of his daughters got down on all fours and let him climb on top of her to get up. He then had a different daughter come in and help. She got on top of the table and then lifted her little brother up. His point was that you can let people step on you and bring you down or you can reach down and help them up. I immediately thought of the Greg Olsen painting where the Savior is reach down and helping bring people up. The caption says "lead me to the rock that is higher than I"

We got Costa Vida for lunch, there was a hot chocolate bar, and it was so fun to chat with friends and learn a lot! Busy weekend to be an RA, but definitely worth it!