New Home, Sweet Home

So! The end has arrived, as has the beginning.

The end being, of course, Aspen Grove. Quick note on that: Thank goodness. And, sad day. In other words, it's bittersweet. Very much so! I am going to miss those beautiful mountains, as well as the beautiful people. But, it was time to go, and I'm happy to start a new life.

And, drumroll please... I've moved into my new apartment! It's beautiful, and I love it. The walls are all painted with friendly colors and it's got a great feel to it. I've met all but one of my new roommates (I did potluck, so I didn't now any of them), and they're all super great! I think we're going to have a really fun year together.

Last night I went swing dancing with one of my roommates, Amanda. We went to a dance that was hosted by the BYU Swing Kids, and it was so fun! I learned how to Lindy Hop and how to do the Charleston with a partner. Usually it takes me a long time to understand dance moves, but I picked it up pretty quickly. A couple guys told me I was a good "follower", so that was nice to hear! Especially since there's no way I'd be doing my own unique dance moves- duh, whatever they're doing, I'm "following" (aka, copying so that I don't look stupid!) Although, I finally had to just decide that I didn't care what I looked like and just had fun with it, and it totally made all the difference. I seriously had such a fun time, and it inspired me to want to take a tap class! So I signed up for one, and I'll be taking it in this semester.

School starts tomorrow, and I'm a little bit nervous, but mostly I'm just excited. I cannot wait to go to my classes and to start this semester! I'm so psyched.

Anyway, that's it for now. Obviously, there will be more to post in the upcoming week.

:) Something tells me that this year is going to be great!

One of those off days...

Ah. So, just to preface this, my friend Kara has inspired me to write more regularly in my blog. Usually I only write when I have something noteworthy to report, but she blogs all the time about just regular every day things, so I think I'm going to try to do that a little bit more. :)

That being said, today was... interesting. It was just one of those off days, you know? The kind of days where it seems like nothing is going right. So I start work at 2:15, which is always nice. But it was weird, cause I woke up pretty early, when I usually sleep in. I got up, went to breakfast and then I came back and went back to bed. So I go to work and I get my schedule for the last week of work.. and I'm working really long days, so that was kind of a bummer. Plus, I'm stressing about setting up interviews for jobs on campus cause it's a little difficult to get a ride down into Provo. So I've got tons of stuff on my mind.

Then the store is really busy- not like huge long line busy, but just a constant flow of people busy, and I'm just exhausted by the end of it. Then I go to sanitize the ice cream machine, cause it's Tuesday and that's what we do on Tuesday. I go to pour the sanitizer in and spill it on myself... typical me. Then after I'm done sanitizing and everything, I go to pour the new soft serve in and I look in the fridge and it is EMPTY. So basically... no soft serve ice cream! Which is a pain.

So I know it doesn't sound like a lot, and it wasn't like the WORST day I've ever had, but it was definitely more challenging, and I was not in a very happy mood. Luckily, during Frontier Night, there was hardly anybody in the store.... so I let myself sing louder than usual :) And that always puts me in a better mood. When I lose myself in singing, I just kind of let all my troubles go away.

Then I read a little bit of Princess Bride, and I was happy. Plus I had lots of fun working with my friends, so it was pretty great. We totally danced while we worked and it was legit. Except I can't dance very good, so I was in more of a dance-appreciation viewpoint. But it's all good.

Anyways. I was glad that my day turned around by the end, but in the middle of it... man, I was struggling. Tomorrow is going to be amazing though! I can just feel it. At least, I'm hoping for the best.

So here's something to end my blog on a good note... new song that I'm obsessed with. It's called Just The Way You Are by Bruno Mars:

The Perks of My Job

Have I mentioned that there are several awesome perks to my job? Because there have been several as the summer has gone on. First and foremost, I can sample BYU creamery ice cream at any point in the day. Heck yes. Plus I get to work in air conditioning. Another definite pro. But the perks that I'm talking about are the ones provided by management to the whole staff.

Here are some examples:
1. Ice skating at seven peaks one time. :)
2. A whole week of Christmas festivities... in JULY!
3. Doughnuts at staff meetings
4. Candy bars in appreciation for doing our jobs well
5. Coupons for the store when we pass our cleaning checks
6. Free tickets to go see "Annie Get Your Gun" at the Scera Theater

The last on this list was the most recent. This last friday, as a staff, we went and saw "Annie Get Your Gun" performed by the Scera Theater Company. The Scera is an outside theater, and I enjoyed it much better than Austin's outside theater, because of two things: 1) the lack of intense humidity and heat, therefore sweating, and 2) the lack of MOSQUITOS! :) It was quite an enjoyable experience. I had never seen the play before, but I was surprised at how much of the music I knew and recognized. The actors were all pretty talented and it was a well put on production.

I wasn't exactly thrilled with the ending, but that's just the feminist in me. I just have a problem with a woman having to pretend to be less than what she is just to soothe a man's ego. Annie was looking at hiding her talent for the rest of her life. I don't know. That just didn't sit so well with me.

But other than that, I really liked it! :)

Oh! Another perk of my job- this one is a little more spiritual- is that every single Sunday, we have a different fireside speaker! Last night we were privileged to hear from Sister Black, who I'd actually taken a class from last semester. She was really great, and she talked about making a difference and leaving your mark on the world.

The great thing about these firesides is that there's always a musical number at the beginning of them. Not only that, but there's also a musical number during church earlier in the day. So that's 2 beautiful music numbers every week, plus the fireside. I've been lucky enough to sing a few times at firesides and in church throughout the summer, and I've totally loved it. I love getting the chance to perform my favorite kind of music, and to have such talented people to play piano with me or to sing with me. It's so much fun!

Bittersweetly, I'm in the home stretch of my time at Aspen Grove. We're in the middle of our last full week of family camp. After this week, we have a mini family camp and then FOL (foundations of leadership- it's a BYU camp for the incoming freshman), and then we're done! It's so crazy to think about. Part of me is so ready to be gone, but another part of me knows that there are definitely some things that I will miss. But luckily, all of my coworkers go to BYU, so I'll still be able to see them often! :) Plus a lot of us are in a All Sports Pass group together, so that will be nice to keep in touch that way!

I should be moving into my new apartment sometime next week. (And by moving in, I basically mean just putting some stuff there- I'm still living up at Aspen Grove until the bitter end.) But I'm excited! I can't wait for Fall! I seriously am giddy to go to school again and to be in classes and to have a new ward and all that jazz!

Random Recap!

Wow! So it's been quite a while since I've blogged, mostly because I've been without a computer for a while. (It's a long story involving a horrible sickness and a fatal Powerade spill). There's quite a lot that I have to catch up on blogging about!

I guess I'll start with the sickness. I know I've blogged before about how there was this big sickness that went around and how I was lucky enough to avoid it... well, apparently I didn't have enough luck to get me through the whole summer without it. About 2 weeks after the sickness had died down, I thought I was in the clear, until I woke up early one morning and couldn't stop throwing up. My, that was fun. Anyways, it was a total pain in the butt and I was so mad because I had convinced myself that there was no way I would get sick- I was boycotting it! But apparently my immune system had other plans.

The week after I recovered, Aspen Grove celebrated Christmas in July! It was so fun. For family night, we went Christmas caroling around camp and then we went ice blocking. It was my first time ice blocking, and I am sad to report that I was not able to make it down the hill either of the times that I tried it. I only got halfway. But the way I see it, two halves equal one whole, so it's as successful of a venture as I could have anticipated. We also put up Christmas decorations in our lobby, including a Christmas tree and twinkle lights. The concluding event to end the festivities was our Pajama Christmas party! We started out by having the Polar Express read to us, and then we took the train that we use for Frontier Night, and it was our honorary Polar Express for the evening! It transported us from our dorm to the Dining Hall, where cheesecake and fun music awaited us. We took "family pictures" and had a White Elephant gift exchange. It was so much fun! Here are a few pictures:

Becca and I in our PJs and pigtails! :)

the store people! becca, anna, brandon, me and kyle!

this was one of the gifts in the gift exchange- it was a date kit, complete with a date planner, a couple of self help dating books, a fake engagement ring and breathmints (in case the date went well!)

me and my roomies! karen, heidi and stephanie! :)

....So that was Christmas in July. It was soo much fun!

Other fun events: my good friend Jimmy had a brick oven pizza party at his house in Kaysville, and a bunch of us Aspen Grovers went and made pizza! It was way fun, and it was nice just to get away for a bit. Here are some pictures from that!

me and my friend Charlee, and our pizzas (pre-oven)

Putting my pizza in the oven, baby!

my beautiful pizza! :)

We also celebrated National Dance Day up here at Aspen Grove! I don't remember the date exactly, but basically a bunch of the staff learned a dance and performed it at our opening show. So You Think You Can Dance posted some YouTube videos teaching the dance, and then we taught it to each other. I learned the dance, but I didn't end up performing it- I opted to video record it instead. But it was really fun, especially learning the dance, and now we always do it at the dances that we have every Thursday night!

....and now, for the big blog event! Drumroll, please...


ELDER HOLLAND CAME TO ASPEN GROVE AND I TOTALLY TALKED TO HIM!! :)

Yeah.

It was pretty legit. It was actually quite incredible. He ended up staying the whole week with his family for a little family reunion. On Sunday he gave a fireside and it was absolutely mind blowing. He's just as passionate and powerful in person as he is in General Conference. He basically talked about God's love for us and how important it is for us to know how much He loves us, and for us to love Him back. It was really cool because the staff choir that I direct up here got to sing at the fireside! We sang Beautiful Savior, the Sally deFord arrangement, and it went really well! The coolest part of the fireside was just that it was so personalized. He mentioned being up here at Aspen Grove, here in the summer of 2010. It was just incredible. Here's a quote that I remember: "We are under obligation to embrace and declare that God loves us." And here's a creeper pic that I took at the fireside:

What was particularly neat was that he came in the store a couple of times throughout the week and I got to talk to him! I was upset because he kept going to the store when I wasn't working, but FINALLY he came when I was working and I about peed my pants. He was so friendly and jovial, and even if he wasn't "Elder Holland" he probably would have been one of my favorite people of the week. He called everybody sweetheart and he was just so sweet. He came in after playing tennis, all sweaty and exercise-y and I asked him if he had won the game. He said, "Yes, but I think they let me win. I'm pretty sure I heard snickering from the other side of the court." Then on the last day of camp he came in wearing a suit and tie, and I told him that I liked his tie. He replied, "Well I like you, so I guess it's 50/50!" Totally. Made. My. Week. :)

It was just incredible, seeing a general authority, an apostle no less, in that kind of setting, with his family and stuff. And seriously? If I was going to pick an apostle that I'd want to meet, it would be him. Hands down. It was surreal and amazing and I was just so grateful to be able to meet him!

Anyways, I think that's about the best recap I can do at the moment. Summer's finally winding down, and I have to admit that I'm more than ready for school to start back up in the fall. I can't wait to move into my new apartment and to meet my new ward and especially to be back in classes and learning again! I'm such a nerd, but I really do love going to my classes. Plus, just being on campus is just so great. There's this awesome feeling about campus, it's hard to define, but I just know that I love it. Oh! And good news, Psych and Lie to Me have both started up again, and I couldn't be more excited. I LOVE those shows! They're so awesome. :)

Looks like that's it for now. But now that I have my new computer, I plan on blogging much more regularly, which is a relief because I totally missed this!

Scared to New Heights

Spoiler alert: I'm afraid of heights. This is a fact, and it is something that I have accepted. On top of that, I am a scaredy-cat. I just am. So the fact that this Saturday, I did the high ropes course here at Aspen Grove was a big deal.

So here's a little summary of what the ropes course is: there's a log that you climb up with notches in it (the log moves, just by the way- that was a nice little surprise.) Then, you go and climb a rock wall, which was probably the scariest part. Then, you go and you walk along these wires and go around trees and stuff, and then you come back and repel down. (Yes, I know that was incredibly clear.)

Anyways. So I decided that I was going to do the ropes course before I actually went down there. Once I was there, I started getting all of the equipment on and that's when the freak outs began.

(This is my friend Jimmy. He is basically like my best friend and he kinda talked me through the whole thing. :D )

So then I get to the point where I'm about ready to start climbing. I almost don't start, but they drag me over and make me do it. Suddenly, I'm climbing, and then I'm halfway up this swinging log, and I look up at all that I have to do and I have this overwhelming desire to quit. I just get so incredibly scared and I want to come back down while I still can. But Jimmy, on the belay, kind of pulls me up so I have to keep going.

So finally, I get up this log thingy. Once I get up to the top, I realize that I'm going to have to make it over to the climbing wall and do the rock climbing portion. I almost didn't do it. Seriously, I was shaking and I just had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Somehow I got the courage to stick my foot out and put it on the rock, and  then Jimmy and Josh talked me through it, step by step. I finally reached the top and almost started hyperventilating. Luckily, Josh helped me breathe. :)

(you can tell by this picture how not happy i am at this point.)

So then I move on to the wires, shaking the whole time. Seriously, the wires were literally shaking. My whole body was shaking and I just wanted it to be over. But I kept going, cause the faster I went, the closer I was to getting to the end.

 It was really nice though, because the whole time, my friends were really encouraging me. I don't think I could have handled the tough love approach, so the way that it worked out was very nice.

Here's a picture of me and Anna, my coworker in the store and one of my bestest friends :)

and here's my super scared face:

Then came the funnest/second scariest part: the repelling!! It was super scary, because first you have to just lean over the edge with just the ropes carrying you. But before I knew it, I was over the edge and then it was fun. Ish.

Once I got kind of to the bottom, Jimmy started swinging me around and I was actually having fun. :)

...And that was my high ropes experience. I was scared to death, but I did it.. kind of against my will. But did it I did! And I feel great about it. I did something that I didn't think that I could do. And no, I haven't defeated my fear of heights, but I think I'm making steps in the right direction. :)

There's one thing I know for sure. It's something that I've known for a while, but now I'm okay with it. I am not, and don't think I ever will be, an outdoorsy kind of girl. It's as simple as that. I am not the sporty, rock-climbing type. I'm just not! And that's okay. That is completely 100% okay. :)

Music Makes the World Go Round

So every now and then, I get obsessions with different songs. Right now, I'm totally in love with like five different songs and I just keep listening to them over and over again, so I just thought I'd share! :)

First, there's Dynamite by Taio Cruz.  He's the one who also sings Break Your Heart, which is another good one. (Who knows how long Dynamite has been out, since I don't have a car, I hardly ever listen to the radio anymore. But I heard this at the last dance I went to and fell in love with the melody!)



K, then there's Everybody in Love by JLS. I've never even heard of this group before, but I totally love this song. It's been played a few times while I was working on someone else's ipod, and it's also part of a skit in our opening show.



Next, it's more of a new artist obsession, but I'm really partial to these two songs, both by Mika. 1) Blame it on the Girls: (PS- music video is very strange.)



2) Lollipop (this one I mostly like just because of the whole message: don't stress about love, just let it happen, otherwise it'll "get you down" :)




And last but not least, I am so extremely excited for Sara Bareilles' new album that comes out in September!! It's been SO long since she released her first album, which I loved. I've been waiting and waiting and now it's finally here! It looks like it's going to be amazing. But she's already released her first single, King of Anything and I love it. The music video is especially cool!




So I guess that's my Friday Five, music-wise. (Maybe I'll start doing this every Friday! Putting five of my favorite songs on here. Hmm..)

Anyways, not too much going on as of now. The store has been absolutely CRAZY this week, and I have been busy busy busy! Tonight, we're having a girl's night! We're going to go to Provo, possibly go to Plato's Closet and DI, then come back and watch Win a Date With Tad Hamilton. I'm excited.

And then tomorrow, a new week begins!

Just Another Sunday

The weeks just seem to be blending together like crazy! I can't believe it's another Sunday and another week of campers already. I think that I'm the unofficial substitute for Primary, because this is the third week that I've subbed for someone. Some days I like it, others not so much. I love being a big girl and going to Sunday School and Relief Society and actually learning new things, but then again I also love going to Primary and singing all of my favorite primary songs. Then of course, at night we have our weekly fireside and then I do my choir practice afterward. (Quick side note- the fireside speaker tonight is Elder Groberg, of Other Side of Heaven!! So exciting- I can hardly wait!)

In other news, nothing too major has been going on. I've started working on a much bigger and better list of my life goals, as directed by Randal Wright's book, "Achieving Your Life Mission". I've surprised myself by how many different goals I've been able to come up with. Some of them are pretty random, but I'm just excited to have them written down.

I finally stopped procrastinating and wrote to quite a few of my missionary friends. I feel kind of guilty about waiting so long to write some of them, but I guess writing them later is better than not writing them at all!

Oh! I also went and saw How to Train Your Dragon the other day, which surprisingly I didn't like very much! It just wasn't my cup of tea I guess. But I also went to Walmart and they had strawberries on sale so I bought some of those and I got some chocolate chips and.. you guessed it! Made chocolate-covered strawberries. :)

Also, I started reading the Hunger Games series. And by started, I mean, I read the first two of the trilogy in a matter of three days. They were SO good! I love those kinds of books, and it totally lives up to all of the hype that everyone gives it. I just can't wait for August when the third book comes out! It's going to be great. Although seriously, I'm in the middle of at least 3 or 4 different books right now. Sometimes it's easy to read, other times, it's hard to find a quiet place and a solid block of time and the motivation to get through a book, which is odd for me. Guess I'm just having too much fun being social.

Okay, so time for my random thought of the day. It's actually something I've been thinking a lot about lately. Basically, I'm wondering: what is a true friend? I mean, I know what it is to me, but sometimes I feel like people have many different definitions of the word. To me,  a friend is someone who is always willing to listen, and often willing to offer their opinion and give advice. A friend is someone who asks how you are doing and genuinely wants to know the answer. Friends notice when you're happy or sad, and they take time to find out the details of your life. They're considerate of your feelings and they express their love for you often. Now granted, there are different degrees of friendship, and with this comes varying degrees of these qualities.

I've been thinking about it a lot, and I think that at the end of my life, I would like nothing better than if everyone who knew me could say that I was a good friend. I remember learning at the personality workshop that I went to a little while ago that a big part of my personality (expressive) is based on relationships with others. As I've become more conscious of it, I realize how true this is for myself. I really do care a ton about my friendships with people. It consumes my life! I have to be involved in the lives of others around me, because that's how I show that I care. Whether it's a girl's night or a phone call at 1 in the morning, or just chatting while walking to dinner, I crave it. I need it. I need to show my love for other people so that they know that I care about them.

I think part of the reason for this is the other end of the expressiveness in me; the reciprocal end of relationships. I guess part of me hopes that if I be the best friend that I can be, that I'll get the best friends I can get. I guess I hope that by caring so much for others, that maybe, just maybe, somebody will care that much for me.

So a lot of the time, I think this is what gets me hurt. Maybe I'm expecting too much of the people around me. Maybe it's me being an expressive again, but we expressives feel emotions deeply. So as detrimental as it is to my emotional and mental health, there's a part of me that is hurt when my care and energy isn't reciprocated. Sometimes it leads to drama, even if it's only in my own head, other times I'm just able to let it go.

I don't really know what I'm trying to say. I guess it's just that I really really try to be a good friend, because I think that besides building a strong family and getting a good education, building good friendships and relationships is the most important thing you can do.

And that's my two cents. :)