Happy Birthday to Me!

This year I didn't think I'd do a whole bunch for my birthday since I didn't really have any roommates. Wrong! My friends are amazing! The day started off with a bang when I went to the amazing Provo Bakery with Kaylene and Alisha (calories don't count on your birthday)

Then we went and got pedicures...which was MUCH needed after a summer of flip flops!

After pedicures, I went and visit my friend Heather for a good couple of hours. I'm going to miss having you next door this school year, Heather! :( Thanks again for the awesome PINK camp chair!!! :)

That evening I went with Carie, Melanie, Amy, Kristen, and Sharla to dinner at Bombay House....so good!!!!! We took a picture with Carie's camera, so I'll have to post that when she gets it to me...it was a good one :)

And then there was the birthday party...amazing! :) Carie wanted to be in charge of decorations, and she wanted it to be a surprise...oh, was I surprised!

That's right! Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus was the theme! It was hilarious! Here are some other happy pictures from the party...

Justin, Ethan, Amelia, Lawrence (all in my ward)...
Sharla (old ward)...
My old roommate Megan and her husband Neil...
My roommate Kristen and my old roommate Katie and their matching shirts...
Shelley (I was her counselor in RS) and Alisha (my soon-to-be roommate!)
Kristen's amazing Birthday cake creation (I swear I'm not picking my nose)
Katie (old roommate) and Dave Buck (in my old ward)...
David Call (in my ward...I had 5 Davids at my party...it was amazing and a little confusing) :) ...
Emily, Asian, Christa, Jenny (all in my ward)...

The cool kids hang out in the kitchen....Alisha, Kristen, Ethan, David, Cheryl (another soon-to-be roommate)...
And of course thanks for all the phone calls, emails, cards, etc. from some of you. It was an amazing day and great way to kick off 24! :)

A Tribute to 23

On the eve of my 24th birthday, I wanted to make a tribute to the past year. It was a great one indeed! I've done so much, and I'm so grateful that I'm at a point in my life when I can enjoy life and do so many of the things I want to do. (So I guess that means I'm grateful to be single) :) It's crazy to think back on the past year. In some ways it has flown, and in other ways it feels like my 23rd birthday party was so long ago (you know, "The Great Harry Potter Birthday Party of 2007"...it was awesome). I did a lot of unexpected things this year...things I never thought I'd do, but I'm grateful that I did! Some of the highlights from this past year...

-I survived my 2nd year of teaching at Timberline Middle School and actually enjoyed it! (shocking, I know!)
-I went to Disneyland with Natalie again...one of my favorite places on earth!
-I spent Christmas in Arizona with my brand new niece, Amie, and the rest of her cute family!
-I survived the longest winter EVER!
-I actually used my gym membership :)
-I read the Harry Potter books...again :)
-I bought a new car!!!
-I got a 7 peaks pass (I know that sounds weird, but that's something I really normally don't do!)
-I ran a 5k
-I went to Arizona with my sisters (I'm thinking a cruise for the next one...what do you guys think?)
-I went to visit a lot of friends and family...including FINALLY making it to Seattle! :)
-etc., etc., etc. :)

So bring it on, 24! I think we're going to get along just great! :)

Bedroom Make-over

Well, I was supposed to be in Colorado this weekend with my sister Cherilyn, but due to unfortunate events, I'm still in Provo. :) I actually made it as far as Price, UT when Cherilyn called and said their truck was over-heating. So to make up for saved gas money, I went shopping. :) I did buy a couple much needed shirts and some jewelry, but my favorite find was a SALE in the bedding department...and even better, I FINALLY found something I liked! I've been looking for about a year, and they had exactly what I wanted!

I know it doesn't look all that exciting, but it's really cute. It's a blue-ish/green color. I bought the quilt and two pillows.

When I got home and made my bed, I realized that my mirror looked funny because the wood was too red. So I got crafty (or tried, at least!) I painted the borders a dark brown. Then I bought some cute paper and Mod Podged it on to the mirror. It's not the best job, but it's fun and adds some color to my boring bedroom!I also tried (and failed) to paint my lamp with that crackle paint stuff. It was way too hot outside when I was spray painting, so it dried too fast...now I just have an ugly lamp. Oh well, I got it for free!

Having problems finding a name for your child?

I've heard a lot of interesting names for babies, especially in the world of Hollywood...Coco (Courtney Cox), Phinnaeus and Hazel (Julia Roberts), Albus Severus (Harry and Ginny Potter....okay, it's a fictional character, but still!) :)

I saw this article this morning about an interesting name that may have gone a little too far...click HERE.

Seattle!

On Friday I got back from 10 amazing days in sunny Seattle! No really, it was sunny the entire time (except for the morning I left!) It was so much fun to spend time with my sister Tammy and her family. I really should have kept a journal while I was there, because now I can't even remember everything we did!

We did stop by the temple so I could see it. They were doing construction on it, but it was still beautiful!

We also went to see the biggest waterfall I've ever seen in person! I had to look up the name again, but it's called Snoqualmie Falls (I discovered that I can't pronounce half the names of places and towns near Seattle) :)

I also got to go on a fun walk with Tammy and her family one night. I can't believe how green it is there! Moss grows on everything (you can see it on these tree trunks), and it even grows on the bottom of slides in the park! :)

The girls and I went to the zoo one day. Our favorite parts were probably the tiger that came really close to us And the baluga whales! Here's a video of Sophie watching the whales swim past over and over again. She LOVED it!!! (later that night I watched this video with her over and over for about 10 minutes!)

Tammy and Steve went and stayed in Seattle one night while I stayed home with the kids. Of course they loved me because I let them play more video games than they are normally allowed (I had to get my Wii playing in sometime!) and I let them cook. We made smoothies and home made pretzels...yummy!

One night I met up with some old friends from one of my BYU wards...Crystal Deighton, Steve Nielson, and Gabe and Alycia Loftus (and their cute baby Preston!) We went out to dinner and chatted about the good ol' days. It was so fun! I totally spaced getting a picture of us all.

We also went into Seattle one day to see the sights, including Pike Place Market (so fun!), the store Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, and fish and chips on the pier from Ivan's. We even stopped by to see the Fremont Troll...it's this huge carving under a bridge of a troll holding a VW Bug....makes for some great pictures :) (notice Steven's hand up his nose...ha ha!)

Well, there's a ton more that we did, but unfortunately I can't fit 10 days into one blog entry. I put pictures of Tammy's kids below for you to see how big and cute they are!

Rachel and Sophie

So while I was in Seattle, I took a ton of pictures of Tammy's kids, so I figured I would break it down for you (this may seem like a lot of pictures, but I have many more than this!) This is more for my siblings and parents to see how stinking cute their nieces/nephews/grandkids are...and the rest of you can just agree with how cute they are.

Rachel and Sophie are so stinking cute! I wanted to take them home with me (and they probably would have come, but they would have been so bored with me!) These pictures were taken by some of the statues at the temple.

Sophie found a friend...it was so cute!

Here's Rachel...

And here is Sophie...


Here's a video of Sophie hopping up and down the stairs at the park. She did this for probably 10 minutes. :)

Steven and Ben

I don't have as many pictures of these two...they aren't exactly the jump-in-front-of-the-camera type. :) But I thought I'd let ya'll see how big they're getting :)

Okay, I look scary in this one, but Ben would pretty much only let me take a picture of him if were were playing the Wii (which he easily beat me every time!!!)

Here's a video of the boys downing a smoothie...it's pretty hilarious because they get ice cream headaches. If you listen, you can kind of hear Steven's new deep voice. :)