We do strange things

In college we do strange things that other people, and often us, don't understand. Yesterday I was back and forth with classes all day. When I came home from my evening class I was surprised to see that my roommates has cleaned the whole place up, did the dishes, and took down the Christmas decorations. All things I had planned on doing that night. There was also a floor relief society thig that night. We don't often do things with RS but they decided to change that this semester and started planning more things for everyone to do. Around 9 people started just showing up in our apartment and working away. No idea who they were. We had a little social thing with hot chocolate and donuts. It was really fun until the new RA showed up and tried to take over and turn it into a floor meeting. I'm not so sure about this new RA... After the RS thing we all just sat around the apartment talking. At 1 in the morning, April wanted to make something. So yeah we had crepes at 2 in the morning and I'm not sure why. They were pretty good. 

April put a pot on her head

April decorating the crepes

This is Alex's shirt. Quite interesting. 

Winter Semester

Time to start round 2 of the college experience. I'm so glad it is a new semester and a fresh start. Back in High School, the semesters ended like 2-3 weeks after Christmas break. If that had been the way college was, I would have had to study for finals over Christmas break, not done it all because it is the break, and then I really would have failed my finals. Anyways, new semester, new classes, new headaches on their way, I can do this... probably...

Music has always been a great resource for me to use when I am tired, frustrated, busy, working, studying, pretty much for when I do anything, I am listening to music. Good way to start of a new semester is to get some new music to enjoy. If American Authors would hurry up and finish their second album things would be glorious but it doesn't exist yet dang it. I've been having issues getting music from the computer at home to be on my phone so I can listen to it, but luckily, I got a lot of iTunes gift cards for Christmas so the problem has been resolved. I got the Killers greatest hits, the Cure greatest hits, and several other single songs that I love to listen to. I consider this a wise investment because I can listen to music for 4+ hours a day easily. Most days I will listen to music for like 6-7 hours.

Another great coping mechanism I use is funny pictures. Like these...

After I finish driving around with my roommates and I'm like "we live!"

This is half of the people I meet. Sleep deprived, stressed, crazy, and no boundaries. 

Oh I tried to wrestle with the girls' bunnies. Not always easy. 

Gam and pa fell asleep on the plane home. They are so sweet. 

Not saying my parents are strict, but this is really funny. 

President Worthen, ,President of BYU, have a devotional the other day and this is my favorite quote from his talk, "if you aren't in over your head, how will you know how tall you are?" by T. S. Elliot.

San Francisco and Peyton's Baptism

The day after Christmas, me, Gam, and Pa flew to San Jose where we met up with Tucker and Lexi. I got up at 4 in the morning and my dad dropped me off at the airport by 5:30. Flying on a plane is always really cool. We landed in San Jose and Tucker and Lexi were there to pick us up. We spent the whole day in San Francisco! I've never been before so that was really fun to go see everything. We came in through the back of the city so we got to see everything. Tucker had heard of a really good place to get breakfast, Hollywood Cafe, so we went there for breakfast. I had some great French Toast, one of my personal favorites. After breakfast we walked around by the Fisherman's Warf for a while, just seeing there is to see.

 The Fisherman's Warf

 We walked along some of the piers and could see Alcatraz in the distance.

 This thing, the arm wrestling machine and the creepy lady, can be seen in the Princess Diaries when they are enjoying the city. I arm wrestled the machine and got just past 300 and it maxes out at 400. The creepy lady has been scaring people for decades and San Francisco feels like she needs to continue to do so.

 I knew Malsue would love this. Someone had a Snoopy on a motorcycle on their boat.

 Small part of the beach from which you could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.

 Ghirardelli Square, also known as chocolate heaven.

 Malsue loves mini stuff and they were selling tubs on mini chocolates.

 So much candy...

 Tucker and Lexi were so great to drive us around all day and show us everything. Thanks!

 The houses in San Francisco were really interesting. I didn't see one bit of housing that didn't have a bay window. Many of the houses had styles similar to those in this picture.

Pa and I at Ghirardelli square.

After this portion of the adventure, we went to see the Gold Gate Bridge. One thing I didn't even think about but I am grateful for it now, is that we went on a really clear day. I guess San Francisco is often foggy but when we went there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was really fun to drive across the bridge. On one side, you could see miles of open ocean. On the other side you could see downtown San Francisco. I think it is one of the biggest cities I have ever been in, and there were people everywhere.

Last stop on our day in San Francisco was Chinatown. Driving around the city you could guess pretty easily that you were in San Francisco, but as soon as you entered the Chinatown area, it felt like a different world. The streets seemed more crowded, more people were out, crazy signs in other languages were all over, it really felt like we has left San Francisco and were somewhere completely different. We had to find a bathroom and it was just crazy trying to find anything. We didn't stay long. As we parked the car and were walking away, some guy warned us no to park there. Good thing he did because the cops showed up soon and started towing cars away. Thank goodness he warned us.

Peyton's baptism was the whole reason we cam to see the family. San Francisco was on Friday, Saturday we just hung out with cousins and played games, just enjoyed being together. Growing up in Utah, we always did baptisms on Saturdays. Peyton's was on Sunday and everything was taken care of right after church. She asked me to give a talk about the Holy Ghost. I've never spoken at a baptism before so that was new. Right before she was going to get baptized Peyton said she was nervous. She had nothing to be nervous about, she did everything just the way she was supposed to. Everything ran smoothly, Jamie did a great job organizing everything, and Tucker was able to baptize Peyton as a worthy priesthood holder. 

Combine the wonderful trip to California to see my cousins and having such a great Christmas, the break was wonderful. I loved seeing cousins again. If only they lived in Utah and we could see them all the time... Now I have to get back to school and get back in the groove of things in Provo. 

Christmas Break

Christmas break was wonderful and could not have been needed more. Fall semester was crazy and I was certainly ready for a break. Coming home was great. My friend Kaitlyn and I drove home that Friday after I finished my last final. The traffic was crazy and it took about 2 hours to get home. Oh well.
The break was wonderful. I got to sit around the house and didn't have anything to do. No papers to write, no notes to review, no chapters to read, nothing that had to do with school. It was great. I just got to sit around, watch movies, play games, go to movies, I did work a few shifts at the theater, but I just got to relax.
This Christmas will go down as one of the most memorable Christmas' ever. Christmas morning was fun of course. We all sat around the tree in our designated spots and took turns opening gifts. Watching movies is a hobby of mine so many of my gifts were movies. Malsue and I got American Authors shirts, which is our most favorite band, we even got to see them in concert back in October. My mom made me an incredible, one of a kind, outstanding Hunger Games blanket. She ordered the fabric and made me a special blanket and I am literally the only person in the world that has a blanket like it. It immediately became one of my all-time favorite gifts. The main reason that none of us will ever forget this Christmas is because of the gift my dad got us. For as long as there has been fluffy puppies running around our house, dad has complained and made it very clear that he does not want a dog in the house. But when it is 6-1 for a dog, he never wins. After all the gifts had opened, everyone went about their day. The kids started a movie, mom went to take a nap, and I started one of my top ten movies, Edge of Tomorrow. Dad said he had to go somewhere so no one really thought much of it. Just before he got home, he called and said that he wanted everyone to be in the living room, and that we should even wake up mom. We all went out in the living room and we could hear him pull into the garage. He opened the door, asked if everyone was there, AND THEN HE CARRIED IN THE MOST PERFECT LOOKING SHIH TZU PUPPY!!!! This tiny and perfect little Shih Tzu puppy, all black. We named him Charlie. He is so stinking cute, Maggie is jealous but now there are 2 dogs in our house. Plural, dogs. None of us saw that one coming for sure. I'm just bummed out because I live away from home and won't get to fully enjoy the puppy days. Also, because he is all black, it isn't easy to take pictures of him because you can't really tell what you are looking at.