Catching up

I have been crazy busy! I have just now caught up from my 2 weeks of being sick in February and the week of being in the play the Mikado and life is good. I am no longer trying to do 3 days worth of homework each night and everyone has told me that I stopped being a hermit and they missed me when I was. It’s good to know that people care about what you do.


The apartment complex that I live in is very active and everyone is always doing something, if you’re bored it’s your own fault. Sometime last week Robert (he’s that guy you can’t help but love) came over around 8ish at night and asked what we were doing later. Me and my roommate both looked at each other and said going to bed. He convinced us to go play night Frisbee, mostly because I’m the one with the light up Frisbee. That was way fun and it started the week of late nights.

Another night we went to Park Discovery and played this game called dot dot. It’s a crazy game where one person is it and they make up like four things you have to do like go down a certain slide, cross the wiggly bridge, spin around on the tire swing, anything they can think of that’s at the playground. Then they decide how long they are going to count so they say like 20 dot dot, then they count 1 dot dot 2 dot dot…… and when they get to 20 dot dot they open their eyes and if they see you then you’re out. The first person to do all of the tasks and tag the person that’s counting wins. This game was brutal. I got hurt a lot. There is a little hole for little kids to climb through and someone said that we had to go through it, so there were like 5 people all trying to go through this hole not even big enough for one person. It was a ton of fun though.

A few nights in a row my roommate had movie parties and they watched the x-men movies I guess. I heard that there were games in a different apartment and that sounded more fun than sitting quietly in a room full of people I didn’t even know so I left. I ended up watching Flubber with some friends. When we watch movies it’s not quiet like when movies are on here, at #16 its always rambunctious and fun. They are amazed at how if they throw something at me I catch it pretty much every time and I’m amazed at no matter how many times you throw something at Christina she always huddles into a ball and squeals.

I stayed up late the next night too just talking and hanging out then I went to bed when they started the movie. This was one crazy night. There is this guy in our apartment complex that just doesn’t have very high self-worth or self-esteem and he’s always trying to get my roommate to go out with him. She went out with him and they went to dinner and then to a movie. She’s really bad at saying no, she’s kinda a push over, so I guess they ended up going to a rated R movie. Well I didn’t really like him much from the beginning, he seemed a little shallow and he’s always talking about weird stuff that he’s done. Well anyway I guess he went out and got wasted and then came over to our apartment at like 2am. I was in my room starting to fall asleep when I heard him come in. Just from the sounds of what was going on I could tell he was drunk. My roommates finally got him to leave around 3 I guess. I’m glad that I know who I am and what I stand for and that I told him that I wouldn’t go out with him.

The play was the week before spring break. Not a fun week. One Saturday we had rehearsal from like 10 am to 5 pm. My brain was sore, my arms were sore, I was tired and I still had a ton of homework to do. The next week was the worst week ever. It’s like all the teachers got together and were like let’s have huge assignments worth half of their grade due this week and then test them about it right before spring break. Between rehearsals and homework my social life depleted. Even though this was the craziest time ever I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. I learned a lot about how much work goes into musicals and what the musicians have to deal with. Like the actor skipping verses or slowing down and speeding up whenever they want, musicians that do this for a living are my hero. Here are some pictures of what we could see…….

The bass player took this picture, she felt lonely in the corner all by herself so she was walking around, well trying to anyway.

They gave my camera to some random person and asked them to take pictures

It was small, dark, and smelly down there and only the front row of people could see the actors some of the time but it was fun. Oh and they had on wood shoes because it was set in Japan I think so you could hear when they walked around and when they stomped in anger it was really really loud. By the end of the play I could sing most of the songs and knew most of the lines.

Snow storm

So Saturday night before stake conference it snowed a lot! I was not excited. I knew that in the morning I would have to wake up early and clean off my car and hope that it would make it to church (my car is more of a snow plow than a car to drive through snow. Should have thought about that when I bought it but it's still an awesome car.)because, quite frankly, my roommate is a really bad driver in the snow and she's lived in snow her whole life! I didn't even get to go snowboarding in it or play in it or anything. It snowed Saturday, was sunny Sunday, rained Monday, and by like Tuesday night all the snow was gone.

outside of our kitchen window

I didn't want to go outside it was cold and I didn't feel very good

the second car closest to the curb got snow piled onto it and he didn't think to wake up and clean off his car before putting on a suit so he was out there in a suit like 15 min before church trying to clean it off. Luckly another guy saw him and started to help.

Oh and this picture is in black and white, that car is really red.

Valentine's Day

I know it's like way past Valentine’s Day but I've been staying busy with school and just having fun so I never posted these pictures.
Like the week before Valentine’s Day they told us to come up with a fun activity for our FHE groups and that we needed to just meet as groups and do something so I asked my friend who is the leader of another group if she wanted to make cookies and decorate them and we could combine our groups. Well somehow it turned into everyone coming over to her apartment instead of just my group and her group. Not sure how that happened.

The master chef. (the one who ended up with our whole ward in her apartment)

People came and went and there are people sitting onthe floor behind the counter

My roommate Desa(on the left) and Sariah

and since I know someones going to ask the boy in the background is Daren

Two parties and a test

The boys in the apartment next door decided to throw a super bowl party. They got a pot going and bought like $50 worth of food, most of it meat. It was really fun. They put two couches in their apartment, one on cinderblocks, and invited a ton of people over. There were about 20-30 people there. If you have seen my apartment you’re probably wondering how to fit 20 people in it, use your imagination and think like college students. I think someone took pictures but they haven’t shown up on facebook yet.


I spend most of my time at study groups for calculus as I am determined to get an A in this class. That’s why I haven’t updated my blog very much this year, I’m either at study group or sleeping. On Friday we had a test in calc. and after taking the test I saw someone in my friend Kristina’s class and told her that she needed to embarrass Kristina by having the class play happy birthday and sing to her (I should probably mention that it’s a class of about 10 people who play various string instruments) Sarah said man it would be even better if we had a cake to eat after. I decided that would be awesome so I called work and asked if there was anything for me to do or if I could come in late they said there wasn’t anything to do so I called Kristina’s husband and asked if he had a class at one and he said no so we went and bought a cake for her and went to her class and surprised her. Her husband, Wes, asked if the teacher was in on it and I said no, she doesn’t even know about it and he almost wouldn’t do it with me. When we walked in the teacher immediately started playing happy birthday and totally went along with it. And we did embarrass her and made everyone in that class happy that they got to eat cake instead of do their work. Then when I went to work they were having a party. Friday was a good day. Today just consists of making up two weeks’ worth of homework that I didn’t do because of the calc test that was yesterday.

Life

What has happened since Christmas break ended? Well I got into all the classes I wanted to be in and at the times I wanted to take them, I talked my way out of having to go to one of the classes (it’s called string studio, it’s really lame you play scales and do busy work for homework) while still getting the credit for going, my iPod was stolen while at work at an elementary school, and I’ve played some awesome games of ultimate Frisbee.


Now to elaborate on the awesome things that happened. I was put into a math 1010 class when I really signed up for math 1210, I just about died when I saw that, there is no way I am going to take a class that I got an A in again. I went and talked to the registration people and they said I didn’t have the prerequisites needed. They figured out that I did have all the prereqs needed and they put me into the class I wanted.

I really hated going to studio class and felt it was a waste of my time last semester so this semester when the teacher said hey why aren’t you taking lessons and I said I didn’t have time or need for studio she said well you can take lessons and not go to studio if that’s what it will take. Well that’s what it took so now I am in lessons and not studio!

I pull students from their regular class and take them to a resource room. Last Friday was a super crazy day, none of the classes that I needed students from were in their classrooms and all the students were on one, they couldn’t sit still to save their life. In the crazy shuffling of students it went missing. We drilled the students and tried to get them to turn on each other but no one would. My supervisor asked me on Tuesday why I didn’t respond to her email that she sent out earlier that day to inform us of changes in the schedule to which I replied, I don’t have my iPod so my responses are going to be really slow now. I read my text books on my iPod and make lots of notes on it; I didn’t realize how much I used it until it was gone. Somehow the temporary principal found out about how much I use it and he graciously gave me money to replace it.

I played some awesome games of ultimate Frisbee. One day we played in the mud and it was awesome. Everyone was sliding around and was covered with mud by the end of the game. The other game we played on a less muddy field but it was coold. I also went to the gymnastics meets with my friends and have been doing a ton of homework. That’s what I’ve been up too.

Dads crazy 4 and 1/2 layer bars

So my dad had this crazy idea to make a better seven layer bar without coconut and he described it all to me while we were shoveling the driveway (I think he thinks too much when he's bored.). So this is what he said to me "what if you made seven layer bars like this: make the bottom layer, wait what even goes into seven layer bars I've never made them." I then explained the process of seven layer bars to him and he goes "O.k. so make the bottom crust layer then the sweetened condensed milk layer then put peanut butter chips and then milk chocolate chips then," in a very excited voice "put more crushed graham crackers on it." while we were making these crazy treats he goes "what if you put marshmallows in it?!" He put marshmallows on half and then covered them with some more sweetened condensed milk. My mom said he was crazy but we made them anyway. When they came out my mom said they were too sweet and you couldn’t eat them and they would just go bad, well they didn’t they got eaten very fast.

My mom said the marshmallows would just burn but they didn't

they turned out nice and crispy crunchy

Christmas

Dylan got a bath time basketball game

I got an amp for my cello.

my dad says that defeats the purpose of the silent cello,

I say who wants a silent cello?

Grandma got a Nook

Jordan was very excited to have knifes and scissors.

He said it's hard to make stuff without them

My dad got 5 things of foamy soap and socks

he was one happy camper

oh ya he also got new church shoes but said there was nothing wrong with the old ones

duct tape fixes everything

we got auntie a TV so she can see the scores of the football games

without having to walk upstairs

naturally everyone but gma got to play with the nook

Mason really liked playing my ipod, taking it back was not an option

where'd the trampoline go?

this is snow from today

this is how much it snowed this morning

third times the charm!

Hey just wanted to let everyone know that I CAN pass English 2010, it may take 3 tries but I can do it and with a B+, which is way better than I thought I'd get. I thought that if I was lucky I'd get a C but I was planning on seeing a C- on my transcripts. Am I good or what?!

Just an update

No big adventures to tell about. Thanksgiving was good, small and fun. They closed campus the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and told everyone that was heading north to leave quickly, so I left work early to make it home before the “blizzard”, it turned out it was just like every other night in Mapleton, high winds and a small dusting of snow when we woke up, nothing amazing. The drive back to school was more adventurous. This was a storm they should have warned everyone about. I made it almost half way to school when I started to see a lot of traffic, it’s kinda weird to run into traffic in the middle of nowhere, and by time I made it to beaver you couldn’t see the road or the reflectors on the side. It was crazy! The next week of school was insane, it was hard to find parking spots, the roads were covered as fast as they were cleared, and I learned that my car is an awesome snow plow. Not to mention it was the last week of classes so teachers were piling on the work. Don’t leave projects you’ve known about all semester for the last week, there is way too much to do in one week to add anything else.


My dad texted me and asked what I was doing, my reply, writing a paper on a book I never read, his response, check your e-mail. This is what I found.

Part of a talk by President Monson.

Now, that would be kind of overwhelming, except that every semester for 21 years he had given the same examination in every class of Religion 101. The examination consisted of one question. And for all those years, the question had been the same. Can you believe it? What a snap class! The question had always been: Describe the travels and teachings of the Apostle Paul.

Some young people would come to class the first day and get their name on the record. That was about it until the final examination. Then they would come, having boned up on an answer to that question.

One particular semester, three young men who had followed that practice of registering and then absenting themselves until the end of the semester sat with their pencils poised as the professor went to the chalkboard and said, “I shall place on the board the question on which your entire grade will depend.” To their great astonishment he did not write the usual question. Instead, he wrote, “Criticize the Sermon on the Mount.”

One of the three young men said, “I don’t even know what book it is in.” He closed his test book and left the room.

The second young man thought for a moment. He didn’t know anything about the Sermon on the Mount because he had prepared for a different test question. He left the room, anticipating a failing grade.

The third one of this trio stayed in the class. He wrote line after line and page after page. His friends were outside in the hallway, looking through the door window, wondering what he was writing. They knew that he had no more knowledge of the Sermon on the Mount than did they, that he had prepared for the question that was not asked. They wondered what he was writing in that test book.

He didn’t tell them until the day the papers were examined and returned. They all huddled around to see what grade he had received. He had an A on the test and therefore an A in the course. As he opened the cover of the exam book, there was the question: “Criticize the Sermon on the Mount.” And here is what this enterprising young man had written: “I will leave it to someone far more knowledgeable and experienced than I am to criticize the greatest sermon from the greatest life ever lived. As for me, I would prefer to describe the travels and teachings of the Apostle Paul.” (p.s. I got an 80 out of 100 on that paper)

One more thing about finals, just as I was sitting down to take my last final I got a text from Nedra saying they were at the children's museum having fun. I texted her back and said that it was not fair to tease me like that during finals week. She went on to tell me how they turn the stairs into a slide, super jealous! I wish I was rich so I could fly everyone to Indiana to see the Smith family and to go to the world's coolest museum.

I am very grateful that I am a part of a church that is so close knit. There is a group of people from the ward and they get together all the time and play games and they are always making sure everyone has something fun to do and knows that they are welcome. I love it! I didn’t know how much I missed them yelling and running around outside until they weren’t there. This has been an eerie two days without anyone here. Yesterday I played ultimate Frisbee with this group. We were tied and it was game point and I jumped up to knock the Frisbee away from the other team and ended up being at the bottom of a dog pile. I felt really bad for Sean, he was going to land on me but he tried to stop himself from smashing me so he put his hands down to break his fall and Brian landed full force on his arm making it collapse and they both landed on me. I was a lot better of than Sean and wasn’t really hurt at all. Next week is going to be boring without them banging on the door to get us to go play ultimate with them.

Good news my English teacher told me I was going to pass, I hope he’s right, if not he’s going to get an earful.

Today has been an awesome day! I did absolutely nothing. No papers to worry about no tests to study for, and no homework at all. I slept in until like 10, which is quite a feat for me, I usually wake up when the sun comes up. I watched a ton of TV and also managed to clean our kitchen, which was quite the disaster after finals week. And watch more TV.

Well that’s what I’ve been up to.

thanksgiving pictures

making gingerbread cookies

a gingerbread man puzzle

caramel cheese cake

mason not smiling

Keaton wanted to stand up but he wanted to eat

playing wii

he wanted to see his picture before I could take it

still not smiling

He's trying so hard not to smile

every little boy likes motorcycles