First round of the season, last game of the season

Now that the weather is warmer and warmer, I can go golf now. I have always enjoyed going to golf back at home. Grab my clubs and drive 3 minutes to the nearest course, pay a couple of bucks and enjoy myself for a few hours. Things are a little more complicated now that I am away at school. There is a course in Provo, but it's like a private country club or something so I tried to find a public course near me. I found Hobble Creek golf course. It was about a half hour drive south of Provo, in Springville in a canyon. It was a pretty nice little course. I really didn't play very well. It was my first time out in about 6 months. Goodness gracious am I sore from it. Oh well it was fun and my golf class will start soon so I had to go do something. 

Last home game of the season. I went with a few of my roommates. It was fun to go with them. It was a good game. Refs were horrible, but they never are great either. Cougars won. I had a good time there. During one of the time outs, Vasa Fitness did a flex cam and I was on it. It was pretty fun. 

Yellowstone

A few months ago, I started researching and applying for various jobs in national parks near home. I didn't think anything would really happen with it. It would be for pretty much the entire summer, in the woods somewhere, and I wouldn't get to see my family or anything.
Today I got a phone call from some guy who works at Yellowstone. He offered me a job to come work in the park over the summer. I would be gone from May 1st to August 20th. Quite a long time. Strange thing is, I didn't even apply for the position he offered me. He said that I would be working at the deli by the lodge at Old Faithful. I would be working at the Subway in the Disneyland of national parks. I want to work in national parks, but not at a deli. I wanted to go with the rangers or something. Not a deli. It'd be a full time job, I'd live up there, they'd pay for me to live there and I'd get paid decently and not have anywhere to run and spend it.
National parks don't have very good cell phone service so that's kind of a bust. If I were to go away for the entire summer, there are a variety of things that I would miss out on. First of all, I love to be home with my family. Home is so much better than anywhere else. Second, Darick comes home July 17th and if I was gone all summer, I would miss any and all the time we would be able to spend together. That would really suck because it's already really hard not to have him around, but to have him back and me gone would be really hard. It would take the entire summer. I wouldn't be able to work at the theater, which is one of my favorite things to do. Working there is so great and I love the employees (for the most part).
On the reverse side, if I was ever to get a summer job in a national park, now is the time. Before I get married and start a family, now is the time for anything like that. What are the odds of having this opportunity again? I want to work with the national parks professionally, but it would be different. When I start a career there, I'll be married and be working on a family. Right now, I'm only tied down to my family at home and they can manage the summer without me.
It's a lot to think about, lots to consider, going to have to pray about it a lot for sure.

Apartment hunting

I feel bad that I haven't been writing or posting very much. There just always seems to be something going on and some reason to not post anything.
For a while there I was really homesick. Even though I am only about an hour away from home, I miss it all the time. My mom just did her job too well.
The last week or so I have been going crazy trying to find a place to live for the upcoming fall/winter semesters. It is super frustrating because there are a ton of places that are advertising great prices, availability, everything I want, it all looks great. When I am finally able to get in touch with someone, it is all different from what they advertise. Many places won't show a picture, which is suspicious. I've gone and looked at a few places that sounded pretty good. The prices they advertised were within my price range, and they hit most of the things on my list. When I showed up to see the place, I was horrible disappointed.
One place advertised that the building was in good condition and fully furnished. When I got there, the building was a disaster and "fully furnished" was a total lie. The walls and carpet were stained and beat up, there was a table and chairs, but that was the only table and sitting in the entire place, no couches or anything in the living room, one of the bathrooms that was connected to one of the bedrooms didn't have a door and there were no closets in the bedrooms. It was as close to campus as you can get, so that's still good. When I researched the place and contacted the lady, the rent was well within my price range and rent included all the utilities. The advertisement also said that there would be plenty of parking. A few days ago when I was able to meet with the landlady, it was very different from what was advertised. The rent was about $35 more a month than advertised and I would have $20-40 for utilities each month. Parking was also a bit of a lie. There is only one spot for each apartment, and it would have to be split between the 4 people that live there. No telling if anyone else there would have a car or not. So yeah that one was a bust. Bummer too, I was quite excited about that place.
The most frustrating part about finding an apartment is false advertising. All these places seem so great on the advertisements. As soon as I call them, the prices are much higher and the nice things are in shorter stock. Many places are either too far from campus to walk, too expensive, or want a full year contract rather than a fall/winter contract.
Should anyone find anything that hits the majority of things on my list and is less that $400 a month, let me know:
-parking (covered is nice but not necessary, just need a spot)
-rent/utilities (I don't wan't have to pay a ton for rent and then utilities, I want to landlord to pay as many of the utilities as possible)
-laundry (either a washer/dryer in the unit or something on-site)
-private/shared room (after this semester I really want a private room, a shared room is not a deal breaker but a private room is the ideal)
-kitchen (I want the appliances to be in good repair, some places say they don't have a fridge or a microwave and I'll be needing those)
-quality (not dump, but not the top of the line, no stained walls or smells of mildew)
-social scene (LOL like I care)
-distance to campus (I'd rather not drive every day, something within walking distance is best)
Yeah that's pretty much everything on my list. My mom has given me a few leads on basement apartments which would be really nice to do. If I do an apartment, condo, townhouse, or basement thing, I need to figure it out really soon. A lot of places are already mostly full and it's been like a week since you could start signing contracts. Sheesh.

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.