November and December

All right family I deleted the old posts that I made into a book so that I would have more space on my google account so here are some posts about the semester.

 

 

Riding long boards, scooters, and ripsticks on Thanksgiving

I love this picture because it looks like Dylan and Ryan were cut out of

a different picture and placed in this one.

 

 

 

The best job on earth.

I get paid to snowboard every day!

Looking back at Cedar from the lift

The first lesson I taught!

I got to teach my friend Rebecca on free day

 

Super delicious cookies!

 

 

We mixed a few different sets of Settlers of Catan

together and had like 10 people playing at once!

 

 

 

One night we were really bored so we drove up to

the C and took pictures of the town. It was really

 cold and windy so we decided to go change the

 word in the stands at the football stadium

Here is the start of change. You can see my friends

in the top left of the stadium.

 

Oh we changed the word to POOP!

(there's a joke among our group of friends)

 

This is a picture of our main staircase on campus.

They started construction like a week before

school started and had a sign that said

completion date: October 31

They still are blocked off.

 

 

The awesome ninjabread cookies I made today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best job ever!

Can I just say that I have the best job ever! And I’m super glad that at the beginning of the semester that all of the jobs (at least 30 of them) that I applied for did not work out. But man was I mad. I was like I’m doing all the right things, I’m actually GOING to institute instead of just signing up and going occasionally, I’m going to two classes, and I’m actively participating. I’m reading my scriptures and saying my prayers, I’m inviting my really annoying roommates to church and institute, why won't anything work out for me? Then I think I learned patience, well maybe not, I was pretty impatient the whole time. But I’m pretty happy that I got this job.

Here are some awesome pictures that I took while at work. Well now blogger is attached to picasa so it says I have to buy more space so here are the pictures on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4129012105815.2147742.1298839491&type=1&l=c9113259aa

Half Marathon and Halloween

Man I have a lot to blog about!

Let’s start with the half marathon weekend. It was an adventure! That weekend I had two tests to take. Let’s take a moment to say that for the whole semester I have two tests on the same day, both in upper division math classes. The Friday before the race Myia, Amber, and I went to the temple to do baptisms then I hung out with Myia, Kenny, Mason and Keaton. We had a blast! The next morning we ran walked/danced the craziest race course ever. Then Sunday night Myia, Lauren, Kenny, Parker, Kate and I had a sleep over. It was really fun. At one point Kate was talking to Uncle Dylan and said “I think I’m too little to have a sleep over!” Which was really funny because I told Nedra that the age limit was 8 and up. but she was really good and we had a really fun time. Monday we went to the new sporting goods store. Myia, Lauren, Kate, Elle and I rode the Ferris wheel while the boys looked around the store. Tuesday I drove back to school and treated myself to Café Rio for a birthday lunch. Then I saw a friend on campus and he got half the ‘living room’ (it’s the student lounge on campus) to sing Happy Birthday, then later some of my other friends got together and we had pizza and played games. It was a good birthday!  

Mason was the only one left alive at the end of this level.

Funny how the only person winning is the one who cried their way

into having a controller

Mason wanted me to take a picture of his hand.

Our morning walk after our sleep over

Yes Parker is carrying a bunny.

He carried it everywhere

at the new sporting goods store there were lots

of displays to take picutres with

 

Jordan sent me some pictures of race day!

 

 

The next weekend was my fall break and I went home again. Fall break for us is kinda weird they have it on a Monday and Tuesday. Friday I stayed and went to The Piano Guys concert (the cello guy, which is why I went to the concert wasn't there. His wife had a baby girl like right before the concert started.) with my friend Chauncey(and yes it’s his real name). Before the concert we went to Nielsens Frozen Custard, I love their ice-cream. Saturday I did some homework and made a delicious breakfast watched some movies then drove home. Sunday I got the coolest gifts for my birthday and had a great fall break.

 

Which brings us to this week. Which has been a crazy week. When I came back from going home on Saturday my roommate had put up a Christmas tree! Before Halloween! She's breaking so many unwritten rules of the holidays. This week seems like it’s been the never ending week and yet here it is Thursday and I still have more stuff to do than week left. Monday night for FHE we carved pumpkins. NO one got mine. I guess I'm just too nerdy for my ward. Halloween night was fairly uneventful for a college student. We just made some French bread pizza and watched clue.

Get it? 3.14

I had to bring some Halloween into our apartment.

 

 

Remember how I said at the beginning of the year that my roommates were way better than last year, well I retract that, they are only better in the sense that they don't do drugs.

Homecoming!

School is wicked hard this semester. I think that probability and statistics will be the class that I barely pass and do a happy dance or retake 2 more times and sigh in relief when I finally see a passing grade.

 

Luckily there have been some fun distractions to go to. Last week was homecoming week and there were fun activities every night. Thursday night there was an orchestra concert. SUU combined with the community orchestra OSU. Confession I never learned like half of the music because when we combine SUU sits behind OSU and that made me and the other SUU cellist the 13^th and 14^th cellists and the conductor was always telling the cellists to play quieter so we just didn’t play half the time. Friday night there was an outdoor concert and true Tbird night. After the concert we went to Rebecca’s house and played this awesome card game called Fluxx. It’s really fun and I won all but one round. Saturday was the homecoming parade and I walked with the math department. I think we had the most student body representation. Ya the math club had the most school spirit. Not the student association, or the cheerleaders, or some sports team, the MATH department. Then we lost the homecoming game but the team we were playing was undefeated and is ranked #1 in our conference and we only lost by one touchdown.

During the homecoming game the stake presidency sent out a reminder text about the dinner then the relief society broadcast, lets talk about a cool thing to see, lots of women all leaving the game shortly after the text was sent out. The dinner was delicious and the broadcast was great. That’s what’s been going on in Cedar City.  

How did I end up here again?

Friday  I was trying to do a weeks’ worth of prob and stats homework in like three hours (because that’s when it was due) and I was being fairly successful until Ashley and Jess decided that they were finished helping me and just wanted to talk about the backpacking trip they were going on that night. Ashley turns to me and goes what are you doing tonight? I was like um finishing up my week’s worth of math homework that I haven’t done. And she goes no you’re coming with us on our backpacking trip. And this ended the productivity of homework for the rest of the day.

I tried to explain that I’ve never been backpacking and that the only thing I had was a sleeping bag and somehow I ended up in the car at 5pm on Friday heading for the mountains. At this point I realized that I should probably figure out where we are going and tell my parents just in case.

We went on the Virgin River Rim trail up Cedar canyon from Cascade Falls to Te-ah. It’s about a ten mile hike. We went like 3 to 4 miles Friday then found a place to camp. It was super wet up there and we were unsuccessful to get a fire to start. I was really wishing I had brought some of my camping stuff down to school with me so I would’ve had a spark-n-shred.

It was super cold as soon as the sun went down and all of us pulled our mummy bags pretty much all the way closed. When I woke up every ones bag had frost around the opening in the top of their bag and by their feet. We were all super cold, we were not expecting it to be that cold, and when the sun came up we moved into the sun and went back to sleep.

At the end of the hike they were like so we’re going camping next weekend and we decided that you have not been voted off the island so you should come with us. Apparently there’s a camping island where you only get one chance then you get accepted or voted off. I guess I made the cut.

I’m not as sore as I thought I would be and I had a ton of fun.

 

Right before we found a place to camp for the night

 

I think that you can see Zions in this picture toward the top leftish

me, Jessica, and Ashley

 

The awesome sunset

 

um yea and this is half as much as when I first woke up.

I didn't want to look for my phone it was way to cold.

 

The sun rise was awesome and after it came out it

was much warmer so we all went back to sleep

 

This is supposed to be a lake

Lake Navajo I do believe

 

 

I'm still not sure how I ended up going camping with only a

sleeping bag but it was fun and I'm glad I went.

 

 

 

And don't worry Dad I got all of my homework done. I know college needs to have study time and I brought some homework with me. I mean there were three math ed. majors there, we did talk about our classes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sand Hollow and a scary sign

On Labor Day I was invited to go to Sand Hollow with some awesome people. We had a blast cliff jumping and I’m pretty sure we all got sunburned and that none of us had packed enough water or ice. I also met a lot of new people and got to know them. I feel like I totally lucked out when it comes to friends because I met an awesome group of people my first year here and the group just continues to grow with even more awesome people. Sorry I don’t have any pictures, my camera was dead and I cannot find my camera charger.

 

ok so we got two videos before it died so I took a still out of the video.

Thats me doing a flip

 

So I walked over to my friends and got some of her pictures

This is me trying to do a back flip.

Which I failed at. Miserably.

 

Then about two days after going to Sand Hollow I got the worst runny nose ever (this was kinda disconcerting because as we were leaving Sand Hollow there was a sign that said to remember to shower soon because there were parasites in the water. Not what you want to read after spending a whole day swimming in said water). I used a whole box of tissues in one day and then a cough came the next day and it’s still here. While playing ultimate one day I made an amazing catch, like no one thought I would catch it, amazing catch. When I stood up from catching it I could not catch my breath and felt like I was trying to breathe underwater. That’s when I decided I should go to the doctors. Note I’ve only had the cough for like two days. But by the next day the feeling was gone so I decided I didn’t want to go to the doctors, now a week later I decided I really needed to go because the cough is worst and it’s giving me a headache.

So I go to the doctors and he does the normal look in the ears, mouth (which has nothing to see since I don’t have tonsils), eyes, heart and breathing thing and then goes have you been on any recent travels? My mind is racing now like there’s no way on earth I picked something up in Greece. Luckily I didn’t pick up any weird disease, no he just wanted me to have a miniature panic attack. He finally decides that I have asthma and that my allergies started the cough but having asthma made it so the cough wouldn’t go away. He then gave me three different kinds of prescriptions and said you’ll feel better in 72 hours. Then as he’s walking out the door, oh but if you don’t you should come back so we can run some more tests for anything you could have picked up in Greece. 

Now don’t think that I’ve let this cough dictate my running and ultimate Frisbee playing because it totally hasn’t. I still rocked at ultimate today.

I totally love  college life.

Love SUU

My first week in Cedar City has flown by! I got to Cedar on Friday, unpacked some of my stuff (you know just enough that I could get dressed, brush my teeth and sleep) then on Saturday I kinda unpacked some more stuff but was gladly interrupted by my awesome friends asking me to go play a game of ultimate Frisbee. Man how I have missed playing with them.

Sunday we all went to church (like all different wards this year) and we also went to the fireside that night. At first I wasn’t going to go to the fireside because I was like well I’d have to drive there and then find a parking spot and it starts in like 20 minutes but then I was like WAIT you CAN make it to a church activity in five minutes it’s not like you have to consider the bus and metro schedules and you aren’t going to go?!!!! What’s wrong with you?!!!! The fireside was awesome.

Monday was packed full of fun (well Monday after classes was, cause classes were just a giant disaster that day) We played ultimate Frisbee then went to FHE then went to park discovery to play dotdot and found a tarantula. Never mind the 3 math assignments I had to do there was fun going on!!!!

The rest of the week continued in this pattern of awesome funness (they should add this word to the dictionary next time they add words).

My room still isn’t unpacked, I haven’t really gone grocery shopping, but I have played 4 games of ultimate Frisbee and finished all my homework before the long weekend.

This is going to be an extremely awesome (and hard) semester!

My half unpacked room. Maybe I'll get around to it on Saturday.

 

 

 

The tarantula we found

(It was pitch black when we went to the park so I'm not sure how the girls found it)

Today's Ultimate Frisbee game

 

I was running full speed to catch the Frisbee, and win the game, when all of the sudden my leg like cramped up and I just fell to the ground. Everyone looks at you really weird when you fall to the ground when you have a good 3 foot lead on the person chasing you. I took this picture while waiting for a ride home, there was no way I was walking back to my apartment now.

 

Oh yea my roommates this year are like a trillion times better than my roommates last year. (Yea I said trillion and that’s not an exaggeration)

Wanting

Lately I've been wishing I could go back to church in Greece. I know that sounds crazy since I didn't JUST LOVE my time there, but I miss it. I miss how much each member wanted to be there. I miss how much they sacrificed to be there, to live in accordance with God's plan. I miss the out pouring of love I felt whenever I walked into the building. I miss brother Hicks asking me until I finally said yes to say the prayer in sacrament. I miss trying to figure out words in Greek.
This is funny to me because the whole time I was there I couldn't wait to go back and blend into the crowd (I somehow haven't been able to get this one to work yet). I couldn't wait to be able to drive to church so I wouldn't have to plan around the bus schedule. I couldn't wait to go to a YSA ward. I couldn't wait to have my personal bubble back. I couldn't wait to leave.
Now I that I'm back I've been avoiding the YSA ward. Because it's too far to drive to. Yea I'm complaining about DRIVING 20 minutes to church.
I'm also still confused on how to tell people who I don't know very well that Greece is not somewhere I want to live and that it wasn't all fun and games and that nothing beats growing up in Mapleton Utah.
I hope I always remember my time in Greece and the lessons I learned there. I don't ever want to forget how incredibly happy I was when I walked into the Halandri branch for the first time and heard the missionaries talking in English, and every Sunday after that. I want to remember how much I looked forward to Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, and Monday night's activities.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Smartphone

Colorado

This last week I took Myia and Kenny to Colorado to visit the Smiths. The ride there was insane! Oh yea we also brought Izzy, their new puppy. We left after Myia’s camp meeting and headed over the Rocky Mountains. Stopping like every two hours to let the dog run around and go potty. It was easy going all the way until we reached this:

Yea the road is being eaten by the black cloud. Inside the cloud it was super dark and windy and super slow going.

When we got out of the cloud I was like well it’s all gotta be uphill from here(Ha Ha get it? cause Denver’s higher than Mapleton). You should never jinx yourself like that. Because the rain turned to down pour and the wind blew harder. It was about time to find a rest stop and let the puppy out but it was raining so hard I told Myia to just put a pad down because I did not want to get out of the car in the rain. About 20 minutes later we saw a mud slide on the other side of the road and decided to call my dad and ask what the road conditions were like for the rest of our drive. While Myia was calling him me and Kenny were super focused on the road and the cars around us when all of the sudden the car in front of us disappeared in a wave. I guess my car wanted to see if it could be a submarine. Luckily we were really close to a rest stop and pulled off and waited for the rain to die down a little. After  practicing our submarine skills it was easy sailing the rest of the way.

Once there we had a blast. We went swimming, tie dyed shirts, went to the aquarium, played lots of spoons and California speed, played various versions of tag, played the oreo game, the shaving cream and cheetos game and ‘helped’ redecorate the house.

Playing night games

we tie-dyed shirts and we tried to get a picture of all

of us looking at the camera at once but that wasnt going to

happen so we got a picture of us all sleeping.

I think Elles shirt is my favorite

Bowling

Kenny wasnt sure of it at first but he ended up loving it

Lauren cheering for her moms sake.

The pool

I love this picture

We decided that Lauren was trying to pants Parker underwater

I love this picture because it took a lot to get Kate to go under water

and it looks like Nedra is trying to drowned her or something

We tried all the first day at the pool to get Kenny to go down

a slide then all of the sudden he just quietly got out and walked over

to the slide and went down

The two non-smilers

The aquarium

My dad said that he thought he was sending an adult and two kids

but it turns out he just sent three kids

I got this riding a princess scooter

I got this playing a card game with lauren while Nedra went to the store.

I was supposed to be in charge

Day 1

I think this is the next day or later the same day

Like two days later

Today

If you’re still reading then you deserve to know how we ‘helped’ to redecorate the house. Well Nedra left and told me to make sure no one got hurt or lost. Well no one else got hurt or lost. Then I decided that Lauren needed to be tickled so I tackled her and sat on her crazy legs and tickled her. Then I ran. While running through the house, I know you shouldn’t run in the house but it was hot outside, we somehow managed to break the curtains on the windows next to the front door. I really wish I had a picture of the before and after of the door. As soon as we realized that we had broken them we stopped running in the house and argued over who was to take the blame for the damage. Lauren said that they were ugly anyways so I decided she was going to take the blame for it. But then I was helping someone when Nedra got home so Lauren goes “mom, Brittney says she’s kinda sorry!” Yea that’s not alarming at all. We told her WE broke the curtains running in the house because I felt like Lauren needed to be tickled. I think this was a valid excuse and a good reason to get rid of the purply-gold curtains.

Needless to say  when they went to the temple Dustin left Kate in charge because I'm not responsible and guess what nothing broke and no one got hurt!

We had a fun packed week and the silent drive home told me we played hard. Can’t wait to have a crazy fun packed week again!