Promises

I made a commitment to blog about the cupcakes I've baked and I haven't. I feel like I'm breaking some huge promise.

Well here's the deal. I made some cupcakes right after I got my new cookbook! First I made the Applesauce and Cinnamon cupcakes with a caramel sauce for the top. I topped some of them with apples and some with pears. Personally, I like the apple ones better.



The caramel sauce really added to the cupcakes and they were pretty good. I was pleased, even though they were more of a hybrid between a cupcake and a muffin.

A couple days later I decided to make the Chocolate Chili cupcakes. I substituted the whiskey frosting with cayenne chocolate ganache. Not gonna lie, the ganache was spicy but I liked it. The cupcakes were dry and I didn't like them one bit. But they certainly looked good!



For Christmas my sister bought me an ebelskiver pan. I've never made them nor had them before, so this was a new experience. I couldn't wait to try them out, so I searched the cupboards and kitchen and found some bananas and chocolate chips to experiment with. It was super fun, even if it did take me a while to figure out how to make the ebelskivers nice and round on both sides. But I did it and they were really good!





Now I'm off to Las Vegas for New Year's.
Have a good one, bloggers! See you in 2010!

Cuppycake Gumdrop

So I bought a book today. Not just any book, a recipe book. A cupcake recipe book. It's called 500 Cupcakes and let me tell you, it's AMAZING. I haven't even baked anything from it yet but I've spent a good two hours just pouring through the recipes and the variations of the recipes and I can't, for the life of me, get enough of it.

So I've made a goal. I'm going to try and use my day off every week to test out a new recipe from the book. Tomorrow I'm debating between doing Applesauce and Cinnamon cupcakes with a caramel sauce on top or the raspberry and coconut ones. I'll be sure to post about whichever I end up doing.

I'm so excited.
I can practically taste them already and they are delicious

I bake pies and wake the dead; I live a very sheltered life

Two things.

One, I love Pushing Daisies and the fact that I own both seasons on DVD makes me smile.

Two, I made a pie today and it was delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I'm going to show you the pie making process through pictures. My camera is currently MIA, so these are from my cellphone and aren't very good quality. But enjoy anyway!

I decided back around Halloween that I wanted to bake my leftover sugar pumpkin into a pie because I've never baked with fresh pumpkin before and it sounded intriguing. I only just got to it this week because today was the only day I had time to fit it in, between both of my jobs, my excessive sleeping, and my ever busy social life. But fit it in I did and it was so fun.

I started off by cleaning out the pumpkin guts and cutting it in half.



After it was baked, the next step was to scoop out the pumpkin and use a potato ricer to mash it up to a fine consistency good enough for pumpkin pie.



Mix that with all the spices and sugar and you get...



The most time consuming part was making the pie crust. I couldn't seem to get it wet enough to stick together so it wouldn't crack. But eventually I did it and I was able to roll it out and get it into the pie pan.





Then I prebaked the pie crust and then filled it with the pie filling. I ended up with more filling than could fit in the crust, but that's better than not having very much.



While the pie was baking I used the extra pie dough to make these cute leaves and acorns to put on the slices of finished pie. I think they're darling.



Freshly baked pie, right out of the oven!



When the little leaves came out of the oven, I sprinkled sugar on them and stuck them back in for one more minute and they came out looking like this



The finished pie turned out great, despite dark brown crust!



Of course, no pumpkin pie is complete without whipped cream! Homemade is the way to go.



Over all, it turned out awesome.



And seriously? It was so delicious.



Mission accomplished.

I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink...

It's no secret. I love Halloween. I love everything about it, the costumes, the decorations, the scary movies. I just realized I lied. I don't like everything about it. I don't like scary costumes and haunted houses. Scary movies? Yeah. I can deal with that. Haunted houses? Nope.

But over all, I love Halloween. It's one of my favorite holidays. This year I was scheduled to work the closing shift at Brookstone and I wasn't really thrilled. It turned out to be the most fun I've had at work, though! I got to pass out candy to the mall trick or treaters (and there were HORDES of them!) because I'm sweeter than Eric (he told me so.) Then Daniel put on the Comfy (the Brookstone Snuggie. Check it out!) and he and I had an all out battle with the power popper. It was sweet.

I closed off the night by playing a couple card games at Chad's house. We didn't stay all that late because the night before Halloween we stayed out playing Mafia until 4:30AM. We're ridiculous.

I love Halloween. I love my friends.

Let's give thanks today

I want it to be Thanksgiving. I'm in the mood for pie and turkey and potatoes and gravy and home made cranberry sauce. It sounds like a delicious meal I could eat a ton of right at this very moment.

Good thing Halloween is this weekend and I love Halloween.
I love Holidays.

I think I have super powers

So this weekend I got sick. I've got bronchitis and it's become a real pain in the bum because I've had to miss work at Brookstone two days in a row and I've stayed home from several ward activities (it's crazy how many activities they can have in just three days.) Today I woke up being able to breathe much easier than yesterday, but unfortunately it's become much more easy for me to cough. If I pay attention to my breathing and accidentally breathe in too much, too cold of air, or too slowly/quickly, I cough like there's no tomorrow. I cough so much that I've got sore muscles surrounding my abdomen. It's terrible.

To avoid being awake and conscious of my breathing, I slept as much as I could today. I slept until 2PM, wake up for a grand total of about half an hour beween 8AM and then. It was glorious. I felt lazy and accomplished all at the same time. I didn't even know I had it in me to sleep that long. I'm convinced it's a super power of some sort.

You can call me Koala Girl.

FACT: Koalas sleep 22 hours per day

About those missionary boys...

I've been noticing an increasing trend lately: missing missionary boyfriends. Not just missing, but pining for him and talking about it incessantly.

Now, I understand the missing deal, it's hard to be away from someone you care about deeply for two whole years and only have letters and, if you're lucky, emails as a way to contact him. However, I don't get why we're throwing tantrums and spending so much time hurting by being apart from these boys.

Do we not understand why they go on missions? We must not really get it otherwise we would be jumping for joy and praising the Lord for the good choice these young men have made to serve Him. Granted, I don't have a missionary boyfriend, but I do have a very, very dear friend with whom I was romantic with and consider to be my missionary out there and I miss him a whole heck of a lot more than I voice.

There's a whole website devoted to missionary girlfriends that has pages and pages of cute package ideas and different ways to make the time go faster and I think they've got it down pretty well. So here's a list of Do's and Dont's they have on the site that I think we could all learn a good lesson from:

Do!

- Be positive and uplifting in letters!
- Write frequently!
- Stay in contact with his family!
- Respect mission rules
- Talk to him about cool things happening with you
- Let him know you're praying for him
- Ask him questions about his mission
- Be a friend as well as a girlfriend
- Remind him you're proud of him!
- Stay close to the spirit while he's gone
- Have a goal in mind if things don't work out
- Treat him like a normal person
- Keep his letters and keepsakes!! He will be glad you did!
- Be consistent, in all areas. It's impressive and attractive
- Share spiritual experiences and your testimony.
- Stay in contact with his family as much as you can
- Hang up pictures of him to remind yourself what you're waiting for!



DON'T (this is the more important one)

- Tell him you want him to come home. (or tell anyone else that)
- Tell him about your latest boyfriend or crush
- Talk incessantly about the future with him
- Demand his full attentions
- Be disappointed if his letters are shorter than yours
- Be upset if he doesn't have as much time as you to write
- Get hung up about fairness---his first obligation is to serve the Lord
- Make a promise you don't intent to keep
- Say you're waiting unless you mean it
- Forget his first priority isn't you
- Expect that you won't be attracted to the opposite sex while he's gone
- Expect a lot period. Be cautious how you proceed at all times.
- Harass him because of lack of leadership positions or baptisms...sometimes the greatest convert of a mission is the missionary himself!
- Expect that he will make up for what you lack in the spiritual department...try to grow right alongside him.
- Ask him about girls in his mission. Just..no!
- Tell him that he's missing out by not being at home, or any other negative comment
- Threaten to stop waiting for him if he doesn't (blank).
- Forget his family at home is alive. Try to contact them when you get a chance and just say hello. They will appreciate it!



Here's my advice to you, missionary girlfriend: Get distracted! Take all that energy you put towards pining after your boy towards school, work, learning a new instrument, saving money to go travel the world, writing a novel, the peace corps, ANYTHING. If you find something you enjoy and will fill all the time wasted over missing him, it'll make those two years go by much quicker and you'll feel accomplished and proud! Trust me, I know. Sam's been gone for nine months already and every time I think about it, I nearly fall over. It seems like yesterday. But I've finished a semester of school and I've been working so very hard and making a ton of friends and staying out all night doing stupid things like playing risk and having wii tournaments. Have some fun. Don't put your life on hold; he wouldn't want you to waste two years doing nothing while he's off having two of the best years of his life.

Appreciate what these boys are doing. Support them. Don't distract them, encourage them. It's the very best thing that we, while waiting and loving from afar, can do.

I'm falling apart

I've become the over emotional girl I never wanted to be. I've been having break downs every couple of days. I'm breaking and I don't know why.

Taking a Risk

So there's this board game called Risk. It's a pretty heavy duty strategy game all about world domination and playing every turn in the very best way you can, since one mistake can turn the fate of the whole game. Obviously, it's a pretty masculine game, it being about conquering the world and all.
Well, last night I was planning on going to play volleyball, but it turns out volleyball is next week, no this week. Instead, the guys came over and we ended up playing this game. It was me and four guys, Jonny, Jeff, Jason, and Robert, playing and then Rick was overseeing as "Zeus". Risk kind of helped me out a bit, but most of it I was going to do anyway. He had to talk me out of a couple things, but over all, I did pretty well. I'm the champ at rolling. The boys started calling me Lady Luck. I think I'm just good at rolling.
In the end, it was me and Jonny going head to head. I won. I'm proud of myself, even if they did do a couple stupid things that lead to my victory. I still won.

It's about time the world had a female dictator.

I forget what I know

So I speak spanish, right? I'm majoring in the language. I'm not quite fluent yet, but I still know a lot and have the ability to communicate rather well. I think being away from spanish grammar and class makes me forget how much I actually know. This week I encountered a couple reminders.

The other night I picked my brother up from the movies and he told me he was having a lot of trouble in his spanish class. I offered to help, so when we got home I got out my old text book and he got out his and his notes and I explained the things he was struggling with. He understood them. He's in spanish three right now, which is the last class I took in high school (I struggled with spanish in high school) and now, after having taken so much in college, that stuff is a piece of cake. I forgot how well I know it now.

Last night at ward FHE one of the guys, Seth, brought a girl with him who's from Mexico. She spoke very little english and was having trouble communicating with a couple girls who were trying to talk to her, so I jumped in and helped them understand each other better. After the game started (broom hockey. I sat out because of my asthma) she and I started talking a bit about the game and what she's doing out here. It was really cool because it was mostly spanish, but a little english.

I forgot how much I like speaking spanish. I forgot how much I know. I now remember why I want to major in it so badly. I think I'm going to go buy some spanish books and read them...

Shout out to my girls!

I'll be honest, this week was hard for me. I found myself analyzing stupid things, getting really anxious about nothing, and feeling so upset over the way things are with my friends here that I got physically sick. I didn't figure out until tonight what my problem is.

I have no girlfriends at home. I know girls at home, but none that I'd call up and see if she wanted to go to the movies with me. It's a situation I've never really been in before. And if I was in that position, there was always a couple guys I'd hang around with and it was chill, no worries. This time around, not so much.

I love the guys I've been hanging around, but they're a little more into their manly time than I'd like, which leave me the odd man (woman?) out. One on one they're fine. All together? They become boys and tease me and cut me out a lot. It gets old really quickly.

So consider this a shout out to all my ladies. I love you and miss you and I wish I could be wherever you are right now. I need to find me some girlfriends out here ASAP.

Bittersweet

Being home has been a pretty bittersweet experience thus far, and it's only about two weeks into Fall semester. I've got some good friends here, but they're all guys and it's sometimes frustrating to not have any girlfriends in the area. I'm excited, however, for my new calling in the relief society because it'll give me an opportunity to hang around with some women. Granted, they're all older than me, it'll still be tons of fun.

I miss being with my roommates and hearing about them doing things without me makes me sad I'm not there. It's something I try to think about as little as possible because the more I think about it, the more discontented I become with being home.

The only thing I can do right now is focus on work and family and making sure I stay as busy as possible. I want time to fly. I want it to be April.

Number One

This post has no purpose.

Truck Adventures

I've been told by my mother that I need to blog more often. So here I am, blogging.

Tonight I went over to Carly's house. We ended up having one of the best nights I've had all summer. We built a jacuzzi in the bed of Danny's old truck. We used a huge tarp to drape over the whole bed and then we used buckets to fill it with suuuper hot water and then we used the hose to cool it down. Also, we used dish soap to create incredible bubbles. It ended up being me, Carly, Nathan, Brandon, Chad, and Christoper. With six young adults in the back of the truck, it was pretty cozy. There were a lot of feet in the middle. No personal space whatsoever. We played with the bubbles and the 38 glow sticks we had and then Carly's parents took us for a drive through the neighborhood. Do you know how hard it is to stay sitting up on a wet, soapy tarp in the back of a truck? Super hard. We were slipping and sliding and sloshing all over. Arms and legs and feet were going everywhere. We lost over half the water, which was the point of driving around, but it was still so fun. A couple of their neighbors saw us and gave us weird looks. I don't really blame them. It's rather unusual to see a truck cruising around with people in a home made jacuzzi in the back. So freaking awesome. We finished off the night by rinsing the bubbles off in the sprinklers at the school across the street and then swimming in Carly's pool. It was so fun.

For the Ladies

This is something a lot of women need to hear.

Listen.
Learn.

Brookstone

So friends, I have a job. I work as a sales associate for Brookstone in the Oaks Mall. You know, the snazzy store that has massage chairs, voice activated alarm clocks, remote control helicopters, and now frogs.

I started work on Tuesday this week and today will be my fourth day working. I really enjoy it quite a bit, actually. It's interesting and not too demanding. My feet think I should get better shoes, but those will have to wait until I have more money. I already spent a fortune on work clothes.

Tuesday was my first day and I got a pretty basic overview of everything. Wednesday I helped open and pretty much ran the front of the floor by myself (I was sooo scared of out my mind!) and then yesterday I helped close. Tonight I help close again and I'm fairly excited about it. I still don't have an employee number, so I can't use the cash register, clock in or out, or get a paycheck. I should have one by next week, hopefully. It's a little bit important. But I'm learning the floor really well! I've got flying the helicopter down pretty well. I'm also all over those frogs. I know practically everything there is to know about them. In fact, I sold three yesterday.

I have a big girl job that neither mom nor dad helped me get. I feel quite proud of myself. :)

Change of plans

Someone was talking to me the other day about how we often will have some plan and we totally expect it to work out and then out of the blue, something happens and the plan is completely smashed. It happens more often that I previously realized.

I'm staying home this Fall in order to work hard and save enough money to go to school next year. I was really upset and didn't want to accept this change of plans because I love being in Rexburg and with everyone at school. There are people I know who are graduating in December and I probably won't see them again if I don't go back to school. It's a bummer, a major bummer. But you know, I have Nathan and Brandon and Chad to hang out with this fall. And I have two jobs to work. It won't be all that bad.

I'm stoked. It'll be a time to remember, that's for sure.

Fun in the Sun

Since coming home I've:

Been to the beach and saw Matthew McConaughey jogging
Went surfing
Saw Harry Potter 6
Been swimming nearly every day, resulting in a great tan
Had the boys over to play the wii twice
Been to the Getty Villa
Been to the YSA conference and had a BLAST
Met a guy in my ward who is super awesome
Been hired at Brookstone

It's been a great two weeks or so. Love it.

The Wii

Since coming home to a house with a wii game system, I've become addicted. Well, I suppose addicted is a strong word, but I'm definitely a fan. I love it. I pretty much play smash brothers brawl and wii sports and use the wii fit whenever I have nothing else to do. It's bomb. Nathan and Brandon came over tonight and we introduced Nathan to the wii, since he was on his mission when it came out. We got him hooked.

I love being home. It's awesome. I went to the beach yesterday and saw Matthew Mcconaughey and tomorrow I'm going to the beach again with a bunch of kids from the singles ward. It's rockin.

Oh, AND I have a job interview with Brookstone on Tuesday. Stoked!!

Homeward Bound

The end is here. I'm officially done with school for the summer. And I just realized that I'm officially a junior in college. Why does that sound so old? Why do I feel like I'm still sixteen and a junior in high school? I feel like the experiences I've had now with friends and stuff are just like the ones in high school, only in a different setting and everyone is in their twenties. Maybe it's just because the people I look up to that I saw in college have gotten older and my perception of what it'll be like to "be in college" has gotten older with them. I don't know if I'm articulating my thoughts very well...and I'm digressing.

The end of the semester is here and it feels great. I'm done with finals and I'm done with clean checks and I'm about 92.6% done with packing everything into my car in preparation to go home. It feels liberating.

I leave early tomorrow morning in order to get home tomorrow night at a somewhat decent hour. Robin from Camarillo is riding with me and I hope she's prepared for the intense heat we're going to experience. Let me tell you something, sitting in traffic in Las Vegas in my little black BMW with black leather interior with no air conditioning at the end of July is pretty much torture. I'm fairly certain that if I hadn't been wearing a shirt last summer, my skin would have baked on the seat.

In short, I'm going to be home tomorrow night and I amso excited. I've made plans with Nathan to go surfing with him and Russell on Saturday. I haven't seen both of those boys since before their missions. I called Nathan the other day and I can't even express to you how excited I was to talk to him. I love that kid.

California, I'm coming home.

I have a heart, you know.

Just so you're aware, I'm no longer dating Chadd. He broke it off a couple days early yesterday. I don't know if I was quite prepared for it and it left me speechless. I was kind of just going along, enjoying what time I had with him not really thinking about how exactly the end was going to go down later this week and then BAM. He ended it. I think he underestimated how emotionally invested I was in the relationship. I think I may even have underestimated it a little bit. But it all came down to the fact that we're at different places in our lives and there's not much we can do about it.

However, I think that this past week or so, maybe even longer, there was a huge lack of communication. Not just on his part, but on my own as well. I didn't know it was so hard for him and he wouldn't tell me about it or anything, even when I asked. I didn't show him that I really did care a lot about him, which I thought I did, but I think I need to reevaluate how I show things, because he felt like I didn't care at all, like it wasn't hard at all for me. You know, even if I am talking big, like I'm not very affected by the whole situation, it's all a front to make myself not realize how much it really does hurt. I do hurt and my heart aches a bit. It was only a five week relationship, but Chadd and I spent a lot of time together and we got to know each other fairly well and ending a connection like that is hard. I'd have to be heartless to say I don't care.

It hurts to know it's over. It hurts to know he's upset with me and I don't quite know why. It just hurts.

I am the dancing queen

The dance competition was today. I competed in 184 Waltz and 185 Cha Cha and Samba.

I took first place in both waltz and samba. It was a pleasant surprise. I'm excited beyond words. Rocked 'em. Holla.

Fifteen weeks

Tomorrow marks fifteen weeks of being away from home. This is the longest I have ever been away and I haven't gone home at all for any weekend or holidays. I am homesick. I've been a baby all semester and I think I've called my parents more times this semester than all three previous semesters combined. There's something about being away from home that makes my heart break. I better not marry someone who wants to live somewhere other than the west coast.

p.s. my brain is going to fall out of my head because of all the essays I'm writing. Good thing I'm kind of a fan of essays...

"Did you use any sunscreen at all?" "Nope!" "You look like Satan!"

Over the break last week I went to Rigby Lake with Kate and Madi and the three of us swam in the freezing water and then we read on the beach for hours, taking an occasional dip because I kept over heating.

This is why I was over heating:



Yeah, it was intense. This is the sunburn two days later:



No wait, it gets better. Here's a picture Kate took without flash, which really shows the extent of the burn.



Gross.

A week later, I'm finally peeling. It's about time. I'm ready to have a normal back that a) doesn't hurt when I wear a shirt/bra (especially a bra) b) doesn't hurt to sleep on c)doesn't feel all leathery and d)isn't flaking dead skin EVERYWHERE whenever I move/change my clothes. It's nasty. I'd like to be able to cuddle with Chadd and not be flinching every two seconds when he touches the burn. SO irritating.

Edit: The title of this blog comes from something I overheard in my anthropology class about a month ago. I thought it was hilarious.

A Midsummer Night's Ball

I went to a ball last night with Chadd. It was outside on the ice skating rink, which is a rollerskating rink in the summer. It was so much fun.

La Dama Del Alba

I just took my first spanish test all semester. I rocked it. This is partially exciting because I really enjoyed the play it was on and partially because I studied the whole thing and so I was adequately prepared.

I'm so glad. I feel great. Then I came home and had a big conversation with Kate in spanish. So cool. Spanish rocks.

Ahem

Allow me to say that I adore my roommates this semester.

This doesn't mean I don't adore Randi or Heather or even Eryn any less, just I really have had a great semester and a lot of it I attribute to my roommates. I hesitate to say this is the first time I've gotten along with all of my roommates, but it's definitely the one semester where we've gotten along the best. There's been a few times when we've butted heads and there are a couple things that could be made better, but it's mostly awesome.

These girls are outgoing, adventurous, and just so easy to talk to. We all goof off and have a good time every day. I love them.
I love my classes, they're great.
I like having a boyfriend at school. He encourages me to do well and we get to spend time together and it's just nice. I like snuggling.

I love this semester



Me, Madison, and Christie.
Photo by Kiersten

Recap of the last week or so

So here's what I've been up to:

Last week we got a new roommate (the korean one moved out) and her name is Kate. She's from Riverside and she got back from her mission is Uruguay last month. We all love her already. She's so fun and so nice!

On Friday we went to IF and spent most of our time in the Barnes and Noble there. It was awesome. We made way too much noise and laughed way too hard. Later that night, around 2AM Me, Madi, Christie, and Carly (she came over to join us) snuck out my window so the security cameras in the hall wouldn't see us. We had dressed up the two bowling pins we took from the shooting range as a pirate and his latina girlfriend. We also dressed ourselves up in fancy eye makeup and black war paint on our cheeks. We ran around Rexburg taking pictures of our bowling pins at random places. So random and so weird, but it was such a fun night. We didn't go to sleep until 4:30.

Saturday morning Madi, Kate, and I went and helped at the Teton Dam Marathon at the mile 25 water station. We had a lot of fun cheering on the runners and I even saw one of my dance partners, Chris, from last summer. Saturday afternoon I got together with Chadd and we went and made paper airplanes and threw them from the third story of the Spori building. It was super fun. I got my plane stuck on a windowsill on the second floor. I don't know if someone has gotten it down yet. After the Spori airplane date we went back to my apartment and just hung out and talked.

By the time Sunday night rolled around, I think it's safe to say that Chadd and I are dating. I'm pretty happy about it, too. He's a great guy. We'll see where things go. Ha! He's Miriam's age...how weird is that? It's only weird to me when I think about it too much.

That's it in a nutshell. My fabulous life.

I'll ride shotgun

Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement. I, Amanda, have shot a shotgun. It was epic.

There's a guy in my D&C class who I talk with every day before class starts, his name is Michael. He's one of the guys who works at the computer help desk and he's super nerdy and he drives an old toyota truck that's rusted all over and it's got big dents and there's no stereo and it no longer recharges the battery, so he has to carry around an extra one in case the one he has in his car right now dies. He's super nice. Oh Monday he and I were talking about our weekends and he told me he went shotgun shooting with his roommate. He then asked me if I had ever shot one and I told him I hadn't, but would really like to. He asked me if I wanted to go with him on Saturday since he and his roommate were having a rematch (apparently Michael whooped him) and he needed someone to go with him.

Saturday came and it was a super yucky day outside. I wasn't sure if we would still go because of all the rain, but out where we were going to go shooting it wasn't raining, so we went. It was me, Michael, his roommate Kasen, and Kasen's sister Alexis. We all rode out to the rode that leads to the civil defense caves in Michael's truck. We were pretty cozy in the front, trying to avoid having my lap crushed by the stick shift, but we managed. We got out there and Michael showed me the gun and all it's parts and how to work it and everything. He offered to have me shoot first, but I let Alexis go first so I could watch someone do it.

The it was my turn. I got the gun all loaded and before Michael threw clay pigeons for me to shoot at, we decided it would be best if I took one free shot to get the feel of the kick back and everything. It was awesome and powerful and I think I'm a little too small of a person to properly hold a shotgun. It was felt weird the way I had to position myself to be able to hold it correctly and have it on my shoulder right. But I shot it! It was super neat!

Right after I took my first shot we heard screams from down in the gully past the meadow we were shooting in. It sounded like someone was shouting "Cease fire, cease fire!" followed by screaming and crying. It sounded like little kids. Both Michael and Kasen went running off towards the gully and I put the gun down with the safety and everything on. Kasen retold the story when we got back from shooting and he said he was running so hard and praying super hard. He said when he got to where the meadow drops off, he could see two kids in the distance, both running and one holding his side. Kasen ran over to them and insisted he know what was wrong. Then Kasen saw an old man on a four wheeler with three kids riding on it heading away from the two crying ones. They were crying and running because their grandpa had left them behind for a moment while taking the other kids up the trail.

I cannot even begin to tell you how relieved we all were. I seriously thought I had shot a poor kid the very first time I shot a shotgun. My heart was pounding and I was on the verge of tears because I didn't know what was going on and some kids were screaming bloody murder. We ended up giving the grandfather directions to the caves and waved them off. But that's not all..

We continued to shoot and we were almost finished with our second time around when we noticed the storm blowing our way. Within about five minutes it got us and it started pouring rain. Alexis and I took shelter in the truck while the boys stayed out to shoot a couple more rounds, just to finish off their competition. They were just about finished when the grandpa on the four wheeler came back, this time with all the kids loaded on with him. He told the boys that his truck was a long ways down the road and the kids were freezing and soaked and he didn't want them to get sick. He said, "May we beg some shelter off you for these poor kids? I'll meet you at my truck down the road, I just can't bring them through this rain." We immediately flung open the door to the truck cab and piled all the cold, wet kids on our laps. Before we left, Alexis and Kasen had to move to the bed of the truck with all our coats in order for all the kids to fit in the cab and Michael still be able to shift gears. But we drove the long way to their grandfather's truck with four of them piled on top of me and each other. It was so cool. They were so cold and a little bit scared, but they were super cute. The wiped off the windows so Michael could see when they fogged up from all the moisture in the car. They helped up spot their grandfather's big red truck and then they all ran over to him to get inside his warm car.

It's one of those experiences you hear about or read in the New Era or something. It was so very neat. There are very few places where a grandfather would trust some college age kids (with a gun) to take care of his four grandchildren.

Overall? It was one of the best dates I have ever been on.

B-Day Shout Out!

Christie Kadz, you're now a big kid. No more of that teenager nonsense. Welcome to the big leagues, girl!

Christie rocks as a roommate and friend. Instantly we bonded. I love that girl.

Happy twentieth!

In Short

This is the first semester during which I've been asked on several dates by several guys. I've been to the movies a couple times, finger painting (okay, I did the asking on that one, but it was still fun), to a concert, and this weekend I'm going shooting. It's super fun.
And yeah, I think I'm pretty sure I'm dating a guy. We haven't had the DTR (define the relationship) yet, but it's pretty obvious. I'm super relaxed when I'm with him. Everything just flows and it's chill and easy going. I like that. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to add Chadd to the list of guys...

Bruce, you stubborn thing

This past week Bruce, my computer, decided that it wanted to be lame and not connect to the internet. I took it to the computer help desk guy (remember him? He's amazing) to have him (who ended up being a different him, a guy named Michael from my D&C class) take a look and fix whatever was wrong. He took a look and fixed it.

Or so he said. I took my computer home only to discover that it still wouldn't connect to the internet. Big problem, considering how many of my class assignments are online. I called Michael and told him the problem and he said they'd have to wipe the whole hard drive clean and take it back to the I-just-bought-this type setting. Fine, I backed up everything and sent Bruce on in to be reborn. Shortly after dropping the computer off, I got a phone call telling me I needed to have these certain start up disks and without them they couldn't do whatever it is there were gonna do. I have those disks, just not here. They're somewhere buried in my closet back home.

I decided to take my computer home and try one of the special tricks I learned last semester, since the computer guys didn't have an alternative solution on how to get the internet working. I did my thing. I'm so online on my laptop right now.

Can I get a "booya, grandma!"? (that was for you, Miriam)

I rock.

Also, I made a stir fry type dish tonight from scratch without a recipe. It was delicious. I cut up a chicken breast, cooked it in olive oil and a bit of soy sauce, tossed in some bell peppers and some salt and pepper and more olive oil and soy sauce. I decided to be daring and added a good amount of ground ginger and then I let it all simmer for a bit while I prepared some corn tortillas. Ate it like a taco. Not gonna lie, it was pretty darn good. Next time I'm going to change it up a bit and by the end of the semester I'll have perfected it. :)

I'm Lost...

I just watched the Lost season finale. I know I've said on many occasions that I hate that show with a passion, but I take it back.
One of the best shows ever, even though I don't know what the heck is going on.

My brain exploded.

The End.

You can dance with every guy who gives you the eye, let him hold you tight

Being home for the winter without ballroom dancing made me forget how much I really love dancing. Also that I'm pretty good at it...

This year I'm taking two dance classes. International Standard Beginning and International Latin Beginning. They're back to back every Tuesday and Thursday. 7:45-10AM. In dance heels. It's really early and a really long time to be wearing my dance shoes, but it's so much fun. Next week I have a test in both classes. In standard we're doing quickstep and in latin we're doing cha cha.

Quickstep is really fast and there are some guys who take huge steps all the time and by the end of the dance, I'm completely out of breath. It's fun, though. It's tricky with lots of technique, but it's awesome.

International cha cha is so fun. I love it. It's super fun and we're learning a lot more technique than in the social dance classes. The guy I'm testing with always taps out the beat on my shoulder blade before we start dancing. I pointed it out to him today and now at the start of every dance we bust up laughing. It's great.

I love dancing.
I missed it.

This sounds familiar...

This is what my apartment sounds like. Not exactly, but pretty darn close.

Let's get Vintage

So I've made a decision about my wedding (you know, the one I'm going to have once I find a groom...) I want to have a vintage-ish wedding. Like, vintage style wedding dress and bridesmaids dresses and the like. I don't know how I'd actually decorate and style the whole wedding as vintage yet classic, but it's something I'm hoping would work out. I've got the dress picked out and everything!



I am in love with all things Stephanie James. She's got some awesome dresses, but this Josephine dress is my favorite. I'd rather have the bow in ivory or white, but I still love it. She also makes gorgeous head pieces, which I adore. Like this one:



Or this one:



Or this one!



I love them. So cute.

As far as bridesmaids dresses go, I was thinking something like this:



But in a deep violet color with a little more sleeve.


It would be awesome if I could pull it off. When the time comes, we'll see how I feel about vintage.

Photos from a Sunday Adventure

My roommates and I went on a random trip to an abandoned town/shooting range/paintball course out off Highway 33 just past Beaver Dick and across from R mountain. We took tons of pictures, discovered an old ambulance an a sheriff's inmate work detail van, rode barrel horses, and played in a caboose. It was awesome.















It was a fun night. Christie and I even brough home some shot up bowling pins. :)