Derry's Party

So, while we couldn't celebrate my friend, Derry's, birthday on her birthday, we decided to celebrate it the week after.

The balloons brought all the way from SLC to Provo for the birthday girl.

Dinner. Delicious pizza and salad. Yum.

The birthday girl herself!

Laura and Karen and sweet little Lorette.

The cake... made by yours truly. 

I'll admit... It's not the best looking thing, but it was pretty good.

I had the honors of lighting the candles because I made the cake.

Blowing out her candles.

Somewhere in the midst of all that fun, we also played Monopoly Deal. It got pretty ruthless. There were some hostile take overs and... well, it's lucky that we all left as friends.

I sure do love these girls. They are my college friends and I'm so glad that we haven't lost touch. It's nice to see them again and again.

Happy birthday, Derry! I hope it was as good for you as it was for the rest of us!

New Place

So, I moved about two months ago. And I finally took some pictures. 

Maybe because I had my new bed and the place is also decorated for Christmas which makes it look 10 times better than normal. 

So... without further ado:

This would be the staircase down into the apartment. We go through a side door on the garage (It's a basement apartment).

The kitchen. Look at how beautiful and BIG!

And the entry into the dining room (slash my box springs and mattress for my old twin bed. Anybody want them????)

I realize that it's rather dark but this is the bar looking back into the kitchen.

The living room. The bathroom is the first door on the right, my bedroom is straight back.

The beautiful bathroom with two sinks.

Behind the curtains are the washer and dryer.

Our seating arrangements for the living room. Perfect way to watch a movie, let me tell you.

My room. I realize it's a disaster. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to store my stuff without storage place under my bed (might be time to get some cinderblocks...)

The beautiful new bed. BEAUTIFUL! I love sleeping now. It's really hard to wake up.

So... there's the grand tour. I'm hoping you'll come to visit soon so I can throw you a party. 

Also, if you want a twin bed.... Or know how I can store it...

Life Via Instagram

 The day after Halloween is when this bad boy went up in the office. I love Christmas.

The niece and I made it to the first official home game of the season. The Cougars won and we may both have a little crush on Tyler Haws.

It had rained/snowed all day. And yet, we came.

As the fight song says... "We will fight... rain or snow".

Mom and Dad came up to pack up the last of the things from Grandma's house. 

Dawn, Kevin, David and I did the heavy lifting.

That weekend also provided a crazy snow storm. 

As Linds said on Sunday, we got more snow in this one storm than we did all last year. 

But you have to admit, it is kind of pretty.

My roommate laughed when she came home and saw the bar decorated for Christmas, one Sunday. I'm uber prepared.

Thanksgiving day started at the gym. I ran a mile and a half on the treadmill and felt much better about stuffing myself that evening.

This was my outfit for Thanksgiving. Thanks to clearance/sales racks and sales on top of those deals, I got the blouse and sweater for about $20 each and the cords for $10. Yep. A sweet outfit.

Witches' Night

My friends and I had a brilliant idea. 

We would get together around Halloween and make a craft, have dinner, and play a game. 

We ended up doing the first two. Never got around to the game.

But it was a perfect evening. We called it our "Witches' Night" and had a blast. 

Dinner... clearly. Delicious.

Julie... stunning. As usual.

Lindsey (She may kill me... but I love her smile.)

Amy.

My pumpkin! This was our craft. It was easy and adorable and cheap (our three requirements...)

Happy Halloween!

Just Ask C...

I realize that I've moved and I've neglected to post pictures.

I'm waiting for my new bed to be put together and dressed up in pretty sheets and comforter set before debuting the new place.

But let me tell you a bit about it.

I live with Meg in the basement apartment of a house. Our landlords live upstairs. And they are the funniest couple ever.

There's Sara. She's a teacher but also an actor/singer. So she's very... expressive. And hilarious. I don't even know how to describe her except to show you this:

Meg and I agree that this... this is a great illustration of Sara. We adore her.

Her husband is not one wit behind her. He's been very good to us... handling a lot of the repairs. 

This last weekend, we struggled to get the couch down the stairwell. After a few attempts, we called him. He explained that the couch HAD to fit because he measured. HE MEASURED. Saturday evening he came home, attempted a few things, and then realized that no... no it would not fit.

Don't worry, though, Monday afternoon I came home to find the couch in our apartment. He had cut into some of the dry wall he had only recently put up to make enough room for the couch and then he brought it downstairs. 

And it gets better... 

Meg ran into him today. He explained that he had to cut into the dry wall to get the couch down here. He's decided that he's going to put the wall on a hinge so that should we ever need to move that couch again, we can just zip on out.

Meg and I laughed for five minutes. In fact, our new solution to any problems is to "just ask C." 

Laurel wants to build a fort but doesn't know how to keep the sheets up... just ask C. I'm sure he'll install the necessary hooks.

Oh yes... it's great fun living where I do. Great fun.

Road Tripping: Vernal Utah

Remember Bear Lake?

That was fun.

And maybe I was sick of work. It's UEA weekend so everyone seems to take the weekend off to play or whatever.

So, when Amy needed to go to Vernal for work, Lindsey, Julie, and I decided we should hit up the temple. Lindsey has a goal to go to every temple in Utah. She hadn't hit Vernal yet...

Amy dropped us off and we went inside. It's a very small temple. I think it used to be a tabernacle and was converted into a temple. The temple workers were all very old and spoke very loudly. We brought down the average age of the session significantly.

The counselor in the temple presidency was nice enough to take our picture. Unfortunately we are out of focus...

(Lindsey: I hope you approve me putting up this picture. I think you look BEAUTIFUL!)

Oh, don't worry... we also had an older temple worker hit on the three of us while we were in the celestial room. He said that he had never see any three girls more beautiful and that we should look him up when we get to the other side. He'll be floating on a cloud and will need some women to cook and clean for him. It was very awkward.

Lindsey took a hold of my camera and wanted me to pose... this is the best I could come up with... I think I need to work on my modeling skills.

I needed a new profile picture for the blog. All of mine are outdated.

We went to Cafe Rio for lunch and then Amy dropped us off at the dinosaur museum while she went to her last appointment. 

Thirty seconds after walking in, the fire alarm went off. So I went and laid out on the grass until we could go inside. 

The dinosaur museum was nothing really to behold. We just wandered. Outside, though:

It's fall. And beautiful. And Lindsey wanted to take more pictures:

Oh, look! I blend perfectly with that tree.

And Julie and I purchased some souvenirs from the dino museum.

After which, we headed back home.

Whirlwind trip: Yep?

Fun: With these girls? Always.

Ready for homework this weekend: No way.

Life Via Instagram

A month? 

It's really been a month?

My bad.

But in my defense... I did move. And I'm into midterms. But nevertheless... here's your update with loads of pictures to explain what the heck I've been doing during the last month:

I'm addicted to sushi. And those darn Groupon type sites always seem to have a deal. 

So I took my friend Amy and we had sushi one night. It was delicious.

Twin brother made a stop while in town for some recruiting. 

I gave him the grand tour of the lookout point and my office.

He took my phone and took this snazzy picture.

I also was questioned all the next day about the handsome young man who was in my office.

It was almost tragic to see their faces fall when I explained that he was my brother.

Maybe my boss decided to buy me a maple bar.

Maybe I loved that. 

BYU basketball did a pretty cool social media campaign.

They hid 50 basketballs around SL county and Utah county and then posted on Twitter clues to the location.

I tried twice. TWICE. All I got was this sign. No basketball. I was sad.

Went down south and watched my sister play softball.

She's pretty much a rock star.

Went to Provo on a Sunday to visit Melanie and Montana. 

Their current youngest is ready for Halloween. He's just a month early.

Basically, he's my sidekick.

 
Fall has arrived and Starbucks has their pumpkin spice flavor.

So OF COURSE I have to have one. And then walk with the Starbucks cup through the Church Office Building.

Beans & Brews has Starbucks beat though... they make a maple vanilla hot chocolate. YUM!

New shoes.

Adorable, right?

Not my usual style?

I'm well aware.

I'm trying to become more of a fashionista.

Pandora is mean.

This is what I get as a background when I go there now.

Also, the San Diego Calling billboards have returned.

I'm homesick.

I need to buy my plane ticket for Christmas. That might make things better.

Girls night is ALWAYS a blast!

In case you didn't catch it on Sunday, October 7th, this would be the SECOND time my name shows up.

So... yeah... another 0.7 seconds to add to the 15 seconds. So now I'm down 1.4 seconds.

My first Halloween card arrived at my house. 

It went right up on the fridge. I'm SO excited! I love little hands.

Lastly... my ballot arrived. I can vote. And I'm going to. Today.

I'm sick of the political news.

So... there it is.

Hopefully it won't take ANOTHER month to update the blog again...