Black Friday to Bright Saturday

Black Friday is tradition at my house, my mother, sister and sister-in-law all brave the weather, clock, and crazy shoppers to get the best deals. We sometimes hit the stores like target, best buy, or wal-mart but this year we decided to stick to the shopping since that is what all of us want. We were meager with our starting time this year and went out at 6 am. It was well worth it, 50% off at most of our stores! I think the reason I love black friday is because it is the official kick-off to christmas: spending quality family time, the music, the shopping, and giving gifts.
After black friday the whole crew piled in the jeep and went to Rhode Island which is only an hour away. On the way we stopped and got some food at the Newport Creamery, quaint place-not the greatest food. But they had an amazing cookie ice cream sandwich which made up for it.

Then I found my dream home! I am ready to move, now I just need millions of dollars to buy it. I would actually take any of the Newport mansions. They originally belonged to the millionaries in the 1920's. We went to the Breaker home which was the summer home of Rockefeller. This mansion was gorgeous and looked like a European castle.

 captain Reed

Afterwards we strolled the harbor, it could not have been more perfect. The sunset brought me back to the Jerusalem sunsets. Perfect day with the family.

 salt water taffy- the only thing that my dad got excited for all day

Saturday was the day to get lost in downtown Boston. We couldn't have asked for better weather. We windowed shopped through the downtown shopping district. We looked at all of the stores that were just way to expensive- we couldn't even walk in. We stopped for lunch at the Parish cafe, apparently a local hit. It took the top chefs from around Boston and they would create meals for the menu, it was unbelievable. Kat and I ALWAYS order the same food- it is kind of humorous. So we got the portabello sandwhich (I love mushrooms). The rest of the say was filled with the freedom trail, house hunting, and walking through the park.

A highlight was when I got randomly selected to be in a street performers act! They were break dancers. I got pulled out to have a dance-off and I won! Ok, not really but I did get pulled out to stand there and so they could jump over me. I felt cool. (I'll post pictures soon)
Now I am sitting in the Boston airport waiting for my flight. I do not want to go back to school but I am excited to see my roommates and friends!

Tomorrow will be tasty thursday.....get ready!

Things that I am Thankful for

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, I hope you are having a great break! This year I have gone through a lot of things which means that I have a lot to be grateful for. Right now I am in Boston with Rob, Katharine, my parents and I am having a splendid time. Thanksgiving morning Katharine, my mom and I slaved away in the kitchen to prepare the feast but man was it worth it!  I made my very first pecan pie (turned out A-mazing I must say so myself).  We tried many different recipes this year so we were kind of nervous but they all turned out, a little miracle. I will compile the recipes that we used and send them to you guys, get ready for tasty tuesday next week :)

Ok, so there are things that were a fail. I found the cutest things on pinterest and we they looked so easy to make so we bought all of the supplies and decided to make them! Here is what they are supposed to look like :

This is how they turned out:

Ya I know. Ultimate fail. We blame it on the fact that we didn't have any milk duds.right?

I want to make a list real quick and let you all know the things I am so thankful for:

my family

my roommtes: linds, mela, and jessi (I am having withdrawals right now)

my religion- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

my education

all of my wonderful friends in Provo and in Loveland!

my health

The chance to go to Jerusalem this summer (best 4 months of my entire life)

my dog Moose and pretty much all living animals

this wonderful planet that we live on

freedom

This is such a small list compared to all of the things that I am thankful for. This weekend has been so much fun and I am sad to go back to reality but I am thankful for the hospitality of my brother and sister in law. tomorrow I will catch you up on the rest of my adventures here but as for now it is time to watch some christmas movies!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

So I have a very strict rule to not listen to christmas music or participate in christmas activities until after Thanksgiving. I think it is only fair to pay full tribute to Thanksgiving but I couldn't help it last night, it was inevitable. Jessi, Melissa and I went on a triple date and we made Gingerbread houses! This just sprung me into the christmas spirit! Luckily the gingerbread houses were pre-made so all we had to do is decorate them.  Vladi and I decided to go unconventional and make it a tropical theme. We had turtles, palm trees, umbrellas, the works.

I like to say that ours won, we did not have an official judge but I think ours was most creative. Here is the village and crew:

To top off the christmas festivities we went and drank hot cocoa in the snowstorm. This morning my roommates and I listened to a few Christmas songs on the radio. And it doesn't help that pinterest is just overloaded with cute holiday pictures- so its not my fault. But I am going to wait one more week to immerse myself in the greatest holiday.

Shout out to Rob: Dasvidanje

Twilight Premiere

All I have to say is that it should have gone straight to DVD. 

Going to a twilight movie at midnight for the premiere is an experience in itself. You are surrounded by teeny-boppers - it doesn't get much better. My roommates and I have been planning on going for about a month now and we tagged the dinner group boys along for the ride. I feel terrible for doing this because of how bad this movie was. The sad part is that I go into all Twilight movies with a different, much lower expectation than I do all other movies but this was a new low. I honestly didn't think that it could have gotten worse than the first movie or even the books but this was took the cake. 

Ok, I feel bad for being so negative about the movie but the experience was fun and I did enjoy it. I was regretting it this morning when I had to wake up for class but thats the midnight experience.

Let me sum up the highlights of the movie: Jacob taking off his shirt in the very first scene, the wolf pack that now talk to each other in very low voices, Bella drinking human blood, and the birthing scene. (if you get quesy easily, beware) At least I got a good laugh out of the entire thing.

And just FYI Twilight premieres don't hold a candle to Harry Potter premieres. not even close.

11-11-11

I hope all of you had a splendid 11-11-11. It was a day of celebration in so many ways; it was 11-11-11, veterans day, Leonardo diCaprio's birthday,  H&M opened in Salt Lake, I successfully made a batch of chicken noodle soup (recent tries were an epic fail), and it was Friday!

Like I said above I made chicken noodle soup for our dinner group, we usually have this on Tuesday or Thursday but this week we had to change to Friday. So I spent quite a few hours yesterday tending to this soup because I was determined to not burn it! Last year for General Conference I decided to make Chicken Noodle Soup and invite like half the ward and then burn the soup so bad that it was not edible. How embarrassing?! So to this day my roommates and friends still bring up the "incident" so this was my time to redeem myself and I was flawless.

Jessi made an amazing desert (that she got from pinterest). It was an oreo/cream cheese/ deliciousness. Props to you Jessi.

After dinner group came the only downer of the day: BYU basketball losing :( This year has started out rough but I have not lost faith in them and I know we will have a great season ahead of us.

To celebrate 11-11-11 in style we went to Leonardo diCaprio's birthday. So maybe he was not there,...... but there were plenty of look-a-likes. My friends threw a dance party and you had to dress up like a Leo character (I opted out of that). But it was fun to see everyone else dressed up. I don't like bashing on the Provo Police because I do respect their efforts but they did shut down the part last night at 11:05. They kicked everyone out of the house because it was too loud. Really? You couldn't wait 6 minutes for us to celebrate 11:11 11-11-11? I guess it just adds to the memory. Still one of the best parties I have been to this year.

Apa Sherpa

This past week I met a celebrity.....Apa Sherpa! Google him. He holds the world record for summiting Everest the most times, 21 Times! Can you imagine that?  I don't even have the desire to climb Everest once. This man was an inspiration to me at a young age he knew the importance of education and would walk for hours to school everyday. I complain walking 5 minutes up the death ramp to campus. It was a wake-up call to me that I need to stop complaining about my education. I need to be grateful. At the age of 12  his father died so he was  he had to quit school and get a job as an expedition porter, he would carry bags exceeding his own weight. In 1990 at the age of 28 he made it to the top of Everest and then has climbed it every year since. His smiling personality and gracious love make him a legend in the hiking world, and not to mention his world record. Here we are with Apa:

This "barn" which was nicer than all of our houses had a stable downstairs so you know what that means- perfect urban photo op

 wasn't quite ready for this one

Well the night did not end there.....instead of going home we all went up to Jessi's house in Park City to escape Provo for just one night. We celebrated her brother's birthday, hot tubbed, and watched "The Fantastic Mr.Fox" I only made it through the first five minutes before I was out but nonetheless it was a fun night. The only downer was that the room where the boy's slept had the A/C running the entire night. poor fellas, they barely slept because they were so cold.Why they didn't get up to get more blankets? no clue. 

This is how they slept. Glad that I was a girl and got the bed.

here we are the next morning....so tired. But we made it home in time for church no worries.

Random pics from that night and drive:

Thanks Jessi for the hospitality and you can all shake my hand later because I touched Apa Sherpa

Halloween part tres

I promise that this is my last halloween post- it's just that it is one of my favorite holidays! I don't know what it is, when I was younger I only liked Halloween because that meant we were that much closer to Christmas but now that I am in college, Halloween moved right up the ranks to one of my fav holidays. So yesterday was quite possibly the longest day, probably because I am still suffering from the soreness of the race so it takes me twice as long to walk anywhere. So literally it was a loooooong day. I think the people who were behind me while walking down the stairs wanted to kill me. my bad but I wanted to turn around and say "you go run 13 miles and see how you feel" but I held tongue.

Last night we dressed up and went to the wilk for the halloween party. I decided I couldn't repeat a costume so I decided to borrow melissa's snow white costume, I think it turned out cute. The party was fun it consisted of pizza, cupcakes, candy and of course dancing. I am not sure what it is about BYU and dance parties but every party has to have music and dancing. I guess it is just our form of alcohol and let me tell you watching all of those white people dance together it looks like they are intoxicated (or they are really just THAT bad at dancing).

Roommate pic

Some of our friends from the ward, Garret and Kai

tradition...

Now that Halloween is over I am looking forward to Thanksgiving and going to Boston to visit Rob and Katharine!! Countdown has begun: 21 days

This morning I had the amazing opportunity to hear the Prophet of our church, President Thomas S. Monson come and speak at the BYU devotional. It was a wonderful speech, he spoke about how we need to be a light unto all people and how we should work on being charitable, kind, faithful, and hopeful. I am so grateful for him and I think he is the cutest old man.

Happy Tuesday!