Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday to spend with family and enjoy the good food. This year I was disappointed, along with Steve, that we would not be able to make it home this year being poor college students and all. Steven and I were planning to go all out and try to make a Thanksgiving meal similar to the one we would have had at home this year. To our surprise a week before Thanksgiving we each recieved a phone call from our parents, informing us they would be coming to spend Thanksgiving with us. Dad needed to drop off a company truck in Colorado and Provo Utah was on the way. Steven and I were quite excited to have Mom and Dad come up and continued to plan a good meal to treat our parents. Even though it was just the 4 of us, we made a full feast, which resulted in lots of left overs, Yum!

Thanksgiving table setting college style!

The Feast

I got to practice making pumpking and pecan pie, yum!

We even got to visit the Paredes Family!

Happy Halloween!!

Being a college student I usually don't do much for Halloween, except come up with fun ideas to dress up as and never follow through. This year our ward threw a Halloween party and each FHE (Family Home Evening) group was assigned to pick a theme to dress up as. My group choose "Peter Pan", and a couple of the girls were hard core about winning, encouraging the rest of the group to work a little harder on our costumes. Our group came in second place, first place was "Monty Python", their costumes were awesome as well.

The night before the party my FHE brothers were over working on their costumes. One of the guys was assigned to be Michael, he really did not want to dress up in a pink onesie and hold a teddy bear, instead he wanted to be the crocodile. I helped him, with the help of one other guy to design his costume I was impressed with the out come. When he talked the jaws of the crocodile actually moved, it was awesome. Oh and I was a "lost boy".

Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Straight to Curls!

Hello everyone, it is birthday time in my apartment, this weekend my roommates and I celebrated another birthday. Chloe's birthday was on Oct. 3. For Chloe's birthday we went out to eat at a a small Italian Restaurant here in town. I have been told it is as good as Olive Garden or better. I have to disagree Olive Garden is way better but this restaurant was good. The tables were covered with butcher paper for the customers to draw on, I thought this was odd for a fancy type restaurant but it was fun. After dinner my roommates and I headed back to the apartment to enjoy cake and have a party for Chloe. Halloween being Chloe's favorite month, I made her a Halloween cake.

The cake has a haunted mansion, a grave yard and a pumpkin patch.

This weekend was also a girly weekend for me, having four brothers I don't do many girly things. In the evening my roommates and I headed to Idaho Falls for the evening. We made a trip to the mall to look around and ended up looking at make-up samples. My roommates did each others eyes, including mine. We then went to a photo booth and took pictures. Let me tell you it is not easy trying to fit four girls in a photo booth, but it was fun!

Katie wanted to perm her hair that night; Chloe and Monica decided they would too. We went and bought enough supplies to perm hair for all of us (just in case I wanted to too) before heading back to Rexburg. In the past I have wanted to perm my hair but wasn't sure if I wanted to now. I ended up perming my hair that night. I was nervous to have my hair permed, nervous for the maintenance of curly hair, for a change, and not knowing if it would look good on me. We started perming hair around 10 pm and finished around 4 am with me. I didn't get to bed till 5 in the morning, boy was I tired. That night I ended up perming Chloe's hair all by my self, I was surprised she trusted me enough to do it. I have never had much practice doing any one's hair except my own hair and on a rag doll.

Surprisingly though having curly hair is a lot easier and faster. After I wash my hair, I part it, apply a small amount of moose, scrunch my hair and let it hair dry. It's weird not doing my hair in the mornings now but also nice to save some time.

I'm still getting used to taking care of curly hair, but what do you think?

I have mentioned before that this semester has a theme to do things we always wanted to do. I mentioned to my roommates that on my 21st birthday I wanted to have shot glasses with sparkling apple cider but never did. They wanted to make it happen for me and purchased the supplies to make this happen for me, they are so sweet!

Birthday Weekend!

This year I had no desire to have a birthday nor turn 22 for some reason. I think part may be due to the fact I would not be spending it with any family members. This year all I wanted to do was go out to eat and have a relaxing day, which I got plus more. My roommates were great and made it a great day! I started off the day by looking at an antique store my roommate Chloe and I have been wanting to check out. This semester Chloe and I have made a list of things we would like to do before we leave Rexburg, visiting the antique store was one of them. We visited just in time too. The antique store was going out of business and Saturday was one of their last days open. Afterwards Chloe, Monica (another roommate) and I headed down to Idaho Falls to visit the zoo. The zoo was free for the day which was great. Here are some pictures of the cute animals......

Funky looking emperor pigeon

Adorable bunny

The King of the Jungle!

After the zoo my roommates and I walked around a small fair across the street. There wasn't much to see and the smell of funnel cakes sure made us hungry. We ran a few errands at Sam's club (similar to Costco) and Super Walmart. Afterwards we stopped by a book store that sells and buys used books. Here I received a free book being my birthday month. After browsing books for a while we headed back to Rexburg to meet up with Katie (another roommate) to go out to eat at a Thai restaurant that I have been wanting to try for quite sometime. I ordered yellow curry chicken, it was very good and I am eager to go back and try another dish.

Saturday was the last day the Snow Shacks around town would be open so my roommates and I went to get a snow cone one last time for the season, even though we were stuffed from dinner.

I thought this sign outside the snow shack was pretty funny!

After stuffing our selves with snow cones we went to the movie theater and watched 'Nights in Rodanthe". I got in free with a starving student deal: Free movie on birthday with ID. Are you noticing a tread of free things, it was a great free day for me!

We didn't have time for cake on Saturday, so Sunday night tonight a few friends came over for cake.

Me and my Pirate cake, Arrgg!

School's In

Hi everyone! I have just completed my first week of school. This semester is going to be a busy one with 15 credits, finishing my last two major classes, and GE classes. I will have one semester left after this one and plan to graduate in April, exiting!

Before starting this semester I had the chance to visit home for 3 weeks, relax and take a break from school and work, which I haven't done in a long time. Here's a look at several of my adventures.....

Mom, Steven, and I went camping for a week at Thousand Trails near Yosemite National Park. Dad, James, Dave, Ali, and Grace came up on the weekend. It was so nice to relax and enjoy the outdoors. The river was low only going up to our knees. We enjoyed walking along the river and relaxing on the island in the middle.

Steven and I hiked Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. I thought the hike was 8.5 miles round trip. It turned out to be 17 miles round trip and 4,800 feet elevation change. The hike was challenging and painful, let's just say a couple days afterwards I was not moving to fast. The experience was worth it though, the view was breathtaking and unlike anything I have seen before.

Waterfall along the mist trail within the first couple miles of the hike

Steven and I finally saw our first bear in the wild. This little guy (we found out later) is named Blue 6 and is a teenager. When we were taking a break, Blue 6 casually came over hoping to enjoy our food. He came within 10 feet of us. We later learned he learned how to open unlocked car doors with his tongue in the Yosemite Valley. He was tagged and relocated up the mountain where we saw him.

The last stretch of our Half Dome hike, the "cables". I feared this part the most but ended up loving it! It took 30 minutes to climb up with all the traffic and an hour to climb down. The last 15 feet cleared up with no people and I ended up running down, it was a blast!

Yeah! I made it to the top!

While home my family and I made a trip to the beach. We arrived around noon to a cold and foggy coast. Around 3 pm the fog cleared and the sun came out. When I braved the icy cold water, I enjoyed boogie boarding and swimming in the waves.

James (my younger bro) and I after boogie boarding.
Well that's all for now!

I'm back!

I'm back and will do my best to keep this blog updated for family and friends. New blogs will be posted soon....