halloweeeeeen.

I've never been too into Halloween, but this 

one has been pretty great so far.

I dressed up as Miranda Sings, 

the famous YouTube star.

                 



        Haters, keep on hating.

found some strangers to take pictures with, obviously.

Definitely got a lot of strange looks.

okay. lastly, I want to share the -best- 

YouTube video ever made. 

Best of all? It's appropriate for Halloween.

ENJOY.

~ favorite Halloween ever ~

it's a wonderful life.

Oh hello, long lost blog. It's been far too long. 

Fortunately, my life has been perfection

 while I've been gone.

 Let me catch you all up. 

Taking things WAAAAYYY back to May, lets

chat about Beijing, China.

For a girl who hasn't been east of Colorado, 

flying halfway across the world was quite a step. 

As you know, The USU Chamber Singers was invited to an international choral festival in Beijing. 

I have been blessed to be a part of this incredible 

choir for the past two years, and this trip 

is the culmination of all that hard work.

If you want more deets of this trip, you're gonna have to sit me down and ask. 

Old-fashion-style.

NEEEEXXXXTTTTT!!

Pine Basin.

a place where all become children again, laughter abounds, and dreams become reality.

If you haven't heard of PB before, 

your life is missing something really serious.

As the head girl's counselor, I got to see every single girl who came to Pine Basin blossom. I was with them when they woke up, played with them all day, and then sang them to sleep. What an experience. 

If you told me in May what I was going to learn and be a part of this summer, I would not have believed you. I would have laughed in your face. However, I would not be who I am this semester if it wasn't for this summer-- if it wasn't for all of the sweet 9-11 year old children that changed the way I viewed the world.

Laugh out loud, and often.

whew. made it though with minimal tears shed.

And now,  I'm back in Logan for another semester of school. My new major is Public Relations, and I am more happy than can be expressed. 

In the last six months I have gained two new sisters-in-law, 360 children, a stronger testimony of the truth in the gospel of Jesus Christ, a new supervisor position at my university, a new major, and a new -wonderful- man.

can life get better than this?

I submit that it cannot.

[ a few of my favorite things ]

Oh rats.

Confession:

I am beyond terrified of rats.

We're talking major fear, here. Like worse than spiders.

Anywho, I was innocently walking home from school today, when who did I see?!

SETH! We had a lovely reunion. Lovely.

Then, he got really excited and said he had some friends to introduce me to, 

so we walked home together. 

Then I met Abby and... (admittedly, I cannot remember the other one's name..) 

Not awkward to meet them. The awkward part? 

They are eight inches long.

with seven inch tails.

and cream and brown bodies.

plus, they live in a cage.

You probably can't tell, but I'm freaking out in this picture.

I don't mind them, except for their tails.. EW. 

And, when they run on the back of my neck.

BBBBbbbbbBBbBBBbBBBbb YUCK!!

Here is the proud Daddy with his new baby.

seriously. sick.

Okay, so basically I overcame a big fear tonight. All I have to say, is the sooner these rats move back to SLC, the better.

-- not my favorite things, but getting there --

Strength.

Friends.

I have an important announcement.

I'M ENGAGED!!

it's a ROCK, right?!

tee. tee hee hee.

In truth, that is a big fat lie. 

I did get a sweet new infinity ring at an antique

store today, but no diamonds. false.

Okay, bear with me on this next part.

Regina Spektor once wrote a beautiful, layered song.

It is called Samson.

"You are my sweetest downfall..

Your hair was long when we first met.

Samson went back to bed, not much hair left on his head.

He ate a slice of wonderbread and went right back to bed.

Oh I cut his hair myself on night, a pair of dull scissors in the yellow light, and he told me that I'd done alright."

So what I'm trying to say with this is..

I chopped my hair off.

I now have an awesome pixy cut, which I rock. Literally.

The faux hawk is my favorite. 

Samson. He, unfortunately, lost all of 

his power when Delilah cut his hair.

I, on the other hand, have gained it.

I feel like a million bucks. I have a

new confidence that is born from my

hair. I realize how ridiculous that sounds,

but it's the truth! My style is finally appearing. It's about time.

My strength is in my hair. 

I should have done this years ago.

DISCLAIMER.

No matter what you may think,

the chorus is def saying

"Oh yeah, I'm awesome, awesome, awesome."

This is a little silly, but I literally hear this 

song in my head when I'm walking sometimes.

It is my new theme song. 

I'm awesome.

Possibly sacriledge.. but He likes it too. See the shine? 

Sometimes I talk while being a model.

^^ Favorite Hair. Hands down. ^^

Adventure is out there!

Spring Break. I must be doing something right.

First, let me say that my plans for this evening

were quite different from what ended up happening.

I had just finished packing my rice crispies into the 

pan, ready for a quiet evening at home, when

 the apartment door opened and one

of my roommate's friends came in.

She poked her head in and told me she needed help putting a canoe on top of

her car. And told me to dress warm. 

Yep. We def just went midnight canoeing.

In a borrowed (stolen) canoe.

This gives you an idea of what I was seeing. Just a lot darker. 

It was so worth it though!

The water was like glass, and the moon was so bright.

We could see the mountains reflected in the water.

mmmm.

Now I'm home and getting warm in my bed, 

but I'll never forget this adventure. 

Sometimes we have to give up the monotony of our comfortable lives and do something spontaneous.

Let go. 

Allow yourself to get crazy.

Laugh.

Remind yourself that you are alive.

|/ A Few of my Favorite Things \|

So smarty..

English 2010.

Great class, but not for the weak at heart.

Good thing I rock at life then, huh.

Me rocking life.

I spent this weekend at home, with my siblings, nephews, and parents. 

It was actually great fun! A perfect mix of family and alone time.

During this weekend, I was supposed to be working on a paper

for said English class. Did I?

Hah.

Actually, I was pretty good and wrote a detailed outline.

Pretty good.

Since a draft is due tomorrow, I thought maybe I should put in some serious

time on it. So that, I dunno, it will sound like someone higher

 than third grade wrote it.

One hour later..

Ding!

Hot off the presses. 

Whatever..

Three page paper titled "This, I Believe"

is finished. Boo-yes.

= A Few of My Favorite Things =

Laughing. All the time.

I love to laugh. A lot.

Today I was trying to find this really funny picture to show

my family, and when I found it, I couldn't stop laughing!

I'm now going to share some things with you that make me laugh.

Really hard. And it's hard for me to put a cork in it after I see

or think about them. 

First up, Despicable Me. Arguably the best movie ever made, with the best little people in it. The Minions are hilarious. And I wish I could speak like them.

NEXT, this hilarious picture that seriously cracks me up

every time!

Some more super hilarious images..

QUACK

Ahahahahhahahahhahahhaha!!

Last, but def not least..

Too good. :) I'm still laughing. 

This next video is so funny to me.. so funny.

(sorry, there is light language)

Alright, I hope you laughed at the funniest

things in my life right now. 

Happy Saturday!

<< Favorite Things >>

Photo Shoot!

I realize how this must look..

Vain.

Mostly though, I'm just very excited to share the talent of my great 

roommate, Katie!

We're currently working on a music video to promote my

music-making, and it's quite different from most

that you see. I'm extremely excited to post

it to YouTube once it's finished, and

I promise that you will be the first ones to know.

So basically, some of the still shots are bomb awesome.

Yes?

It

was

dang

fun, 

anyhow.

Here are a few that I posted to Facebook. 

^ Album cover, anyone? ^

With that, be looking forward to a 

future post with the finished video! 

It will be amazing.

~* My Favorite Things *~

As fast as you can!

4.79 miles.

Yes, I jogged that today...

And I feel AWESOME!!

For Lent, most people give something up. But me?

I'm going to gain something.

I'm setting a goal to run a 5k in 25 minutes. 

I'll keep you updated on how I'm doing with my goal.

<< Favorite Things >>

Just a few.

Hallo. 

:)

In lou of the title of my blog, I thought I would mention

just a few of my favorite things.

     1. Riding the bus to school every Tuesday and Thursday with my beautiful roommate, Katie. (also, laughing at the strange people who ride with us.)

2. Pulling out the guitar and strumming away all my frustrations.

       3. Cell phones. Be real friends, it's rough without one. Try it for a month and see.

  4. Friends. They are the stars of my world. 

5. Thinking about how lucky I am to be going to China in 3 months.

          6. Emailing people. <-- quickly becoming #1. 

  7. Filing my taxes and realizing I'm getting a bomb awesome return.

 8. Seeing someone from across the room, and having nothing to do but smile at them.

         9. Playing ping-pong until all hours of the night. Okay, really just 11:00.


  
  10. Meow.


            11. Buffing my fingernails. Quite relaxing, actually.


12. Reading recipes. More specifically, accomplishing recipes.


    13. Walking around the apartment in my wool slippers.


 14. Working. Truthfully, I love it right now.


        15. Having not one, or two, but three valentines!


    16. Daydreaming about going home for the weekend..


             17. Chamber Singers. Sanctus and Benedictus. Gorgeous.


       18. Sit on the end of my bed and kick my feet.


  19. The Doctrine and Covenants.


  20. Not having math homework all the time, like my friends do. :)

   

-- A Few of my Favorite Things --

Oakcrest.

It's about time I blogged about one of the most beautiful summers of my life.

So, this summer I was a camp counselor.

It's true.

One more thing, I loved it.

This summer turned out to be exactly what I needed. I found out a lot about myself! I came across an amount of energy that I never thought to be possible, a compassionate side of me that I had never seen, and 91 thirteen year olds to love. 

Week one I can describe in one word. 

HARD. 

I had no idea what I was doing,

but my sweet campers

laughed at my jokes anyway.

By second week I was feeling better,

and this was the week that started

my love affair with Justin Bieber.

That's right.

Be jealous.

The third week brought a group of

extremely 'scraggly' and, 

lets be honest, 

farty girls. :) 

We dressed up as Peter Pan

characters for the party.

Along with sweet costumes, 

week three decided to come up with an evil plan to zip line in the middle of the night. We executed it perfectly..

except when we got to the harness closet it was locked!

Spoiled. But we made up a great cover story anyway. 

I sure did love that night!

Look at these gorgeous girls.

Week four brought a 

never-ending party. 

We sang opera, played in the ashes after cookout,

and sang everywhere. Yes. We did.

Week five was floater week for me, so I had no campers.

And was very sad. But that was the week I found the ukulele,

so I can't complain. Love my little red friend!

Week six was International Week!

We represented Madagascar.

Manao ahoana!

Pretty sure we had a flour-bomb

fight that week..so SO fun.

Oh week seven..my crazy little ones!

We had a fantastic photo shoot in our

80's costumes, and let me be the first

to say that those costumes were

probably the best I saw all summer.

Love it.

Week Eight, I love you!


We had the funnest time on the 
foam slide after a very
adventurous hike.


I went moose hunting.


The so-called moose grunts that we heard turned out to be a camper blowing her nose.
Ridiculous, right?

I am very sorry to say that my camera broke

during week nine. I have no digital evidence

that week nine even happened..

But I promise it did! 

We had a beautiful experience with 

a special needs camper and her

17 year old buddy. 

I will never forget how wonderful all my campers were. We all worked together

better than any other group all summer.

Christmas Week!

This week was too much fun.

We re-enacted the manger scene, and got to carry around my teddy bear wrapped in a blanket as our baby Jesus all week.

Probably not the most religious thing, but eh. Oh well.

We also got to write letters to our Savior, giving him something in return for his sacrifice for us. 

We learned the ultimate importance of him being born to Mary and Joseph, and the 

harsh beauty of the circumstances surrounding his miraculous birth.

I've never felt the spirit as strong as I did that week. 

I will never forget the lessons I have been taught by the

daughters of God that I was blessed enough to spend time with. This experience is something that will stay in my heart for the eternities. Thank you for the most beautiful summer of my life, dear ones! 

I love you, and I hope you are still as happy as I am.

{{ Favorite place on Earth }}