How to be the coolest Sister... Ever.

Well.. First off you can't.. Because I already am. But that's altogether besides the point.

Really it's simple: tell your family that you are coming home the day before Thanksgiving, and that you'll be there until Sunday.

And then come home 5 days early.

But really, getting to spend 9 days with my family was fantastic (if slightly chaotic and mostly mad craziness the whole time). 

To be honest, I made a mental list of all the things that were completely different at home from other home. And some of them were really fantastic...but that post will come later, probably during Christmas break when I have both time and can remember all the great comments I had. So that's cool.

Thanksgiving is fantastic. I love food. Gosh I love food. Also my birthday was over break, and since I am now a legal adult that was kind of a big deal. Just a tiny bit. 

Our Thanksgiving celebration was a little different than usual. We ate dinner together just as a family, and then I made a key lime pie and a pecan pie, my sister made a pumpkin pie and my mom made a blueberry cream cheese pie. Then we took said pies over to our friends house. They are from Rwanda and had just had their fourth baby girl the previous Saturday which was also very exciting. Anyways, we went to their house, and they had friends also from Rwanda up visiting them-so we shoe-horned my family of 8, their family of 6 and their friends family of 8 into this small little house and ate pie. 

Now let me just pause and talk about how Thanksgiving works in my family: 

We cook all morning. 

Then we eat ourselves silly. 

Then we take naps.

Then we eat pie.

Then we lay around and digest our food.

Then we go to bed. 

That's it. But our friends from Rwanda have a little bit different tradition. That we got dragged into. 

After we ate pie they showed us a bunch of traditional African dances...but they didn't just let us sit on the couch and watch. No no. We were up dancing with them. For an hour and a half. 

Suffice it to say that I was sufficiently exhausted when we left. 

I do miss my family a lot, and it was good to be able to be with them for so long.. but right now my life has taken me to Provo and right here is where I need to be, for however long that will end up being. It's good to see them, and I wish I could visit them more often, but I know I'm in a new phase of life now and it's only going to get crazier from here on out. 

Awkward and Awesome... So the usual

The last week has been the best. 

Except friendship is bad for the whole school thing. 

Or at least the whole sleep thing.

I take a lot of naps.

Anyways so many adventures and so much to do... I think though that I've finally gotten into the swing of things here and have (mostly) figured out how to manage work and play and sleep and eating. 

Over the course of the last week the range of emotions felt has been just prime... So here's the breakdown:

YAY for:

Stake Conference (good all around: felt the spirit & got done with church at noon)

Sundays

Movie nights

Cookie Dough

Pizza

Sleepovers (except for the lack of sleeping part)

Lorde (she is an angel... That's all)

Food (this is never a bad thing..) 

Warm blankets

My girls- Nikki and Nicole. (Yeah I got left out of the name game.. I'm unique!) 

IT'S FINALLY FRIDAY!! (Praise heaven)

Boys 

Boys (I just think this deserves a double mention)

Super Smash Bros (see above)

Guitar.. And singing... And piano 

NAY to:

Not getting sleep (even though its worth it... The day needs approximately 5 more hours)

Having to do laundry

Not having food

Cold (without snow)

Getting woken up early NOT for story time..

Homework (sadly most of my life revolves around this right now.. #collegeprobs)

meh.. Life happens:

Shaving in the laundry room (where else?? .. Also quality bonding time, except when the custodian dude walks in... Why does a male clean the girls dorm?)

Getting woken up at 3:30 am for story time (initially I was really scared, but it was worth it on so many levels)

Taking a three-hour nap with Nikki in the guys apartment in the middle of the day. (Not entirely sure how that happened.. But yolo, right?... Just kidding I don't actually say that.. But still.)

That awkward moment when you go to hang out with someone who you don't usually hang out with... And you go to the wrong apartment, but they let you in and it takes you approximately 5 minutes to realize that the person you intended to hang out with doesn't actually live there.. And by then it's too late to do anything so you stay. 

Really I feel like that doesn't entirely cover the whole scenario of my life.. But oh well.

It's the best. 

Love college, love life, love friends, love food and love sleep. :) 

Peace xoxo

Terming the Middle

I hate tests.

Who came up with that idea in the first place?

...Probably the French.

But moving on:

Tests are awful...but there are lots of great things that can allow me to forget said tests. In no particular order some of these things are:

Football (especially when we win. especially against Boise.)

Frisbee (also especially when we win. so that would not be this week...)

Dates (especially when one of the above is involved..see winning against Boise)

Fall

Delicious Breakfasts

Delicious Breakfasts that I neither made nor paid for

Brownies

Orange Chicken (except when it gets eaten by other people...)

Food

Food 

Food

...Food

Movies

TV Shows

Gina and Shelby bonding time (sometimes we get ditched by everyone else)

Passing Cleaning Checks

Not having homework (this doesn't ACTUALLY happen, but it's nice to pretend.)

...AND

Food. 

You can see where my priorities lie. 

My stomach has so much control over my life..

ah well. 

Here's a cute picture:

Nothing describes my roommates like this picture does. 

So again, I vow to be better about posting. We'll see how that goes.

To Break from the Norm

So much for keeping up with it...It's not that I have no free time...it's that I spend most of my free time eating, or watching movies, or laying on the couch like a lifeless blob. Usually a combination of all three. 

And it's not that I don't have anything to do right now either, I would just rather take a mental break from life. So here we are.

College is basically a never-ending flow of cramming information into my too full brain, and subsequently losing the vast majority of that knowledge due to a combination of not enough sleep and too much reality TV. But really, it's a blast :)

I'm not sure if I have really good or really terrible luck, but either way, I have only taken one midterm so far.. the rest are in two weeks. So that's slightly stressful, but I'm sure it will be much, much, MUCH worse next Monday when I start having freakouts. That's why we have a trampoline in our apartment. Honestly.

Mostly, I try to shake things up whenever I can. For obvious reasons that's always a little difficult during the normal week, but once I'm done with class on Friday there's a whole slew of options. Not that I really take advantage of all of them...but I try. 

Of course, one of the highlights of the week is gameday. Love me my football, in case I haven't mentioned it before. Last week was especially fun because it was homecoming, which is exciting in and of itself, but also because my adorable family came down from the 'Burg to visit me! My dad, sisters, and one of my brothers came along to the game with me and we had a blast. It was so great to spend time with them, even if it wasn't nearly long enough. (Also we won and that's always a plus. Go Cougs!!)

In my time here, I've learned a lot (see above comment on over-informing brain), but not just about politics and europe (and english and religion if we're just going to name off all the subjects I'm taking), but also about myself, and about other people and (cliche alert!!) life in general. 

People are not predictable. I mean, they can be, but they can always surprise you. In fact, I surprise my self all the time. But honestly, one of my new "mottos" is to keep my eyes open and never take anyone's personality for granted-I'm trying to not assume anything (good OR bad) about anyone, and to not be surprised when people surprise me. Because they always do. 

And so it begins..

Wow. This has been the craziest week of my whole life. It's been crazy overwhelming and I have loved every second of it. I moved into my apartment, met my 5 roommates and already feel like I have a new home. Between buying textbooks and getting orientated to be a freshman here at BYU, it's been a little stressful. BUT I wouldn't change it for anything. We've stayed up late laughing and decorating our little apartment with artwork and paper dolls and posters. We've already been a part of the first football game of the season, and although that loss was a little disappointing we turned right around and watching the women's soccer team beat Nebraska 3-0. We've danced like nobody's business and partied hard. I am so incredibly blessed to have already gained some of the best friends I've ever had. We have had an instant connection and it feels like we've known each other our whole lives. Today we got to go to church and meet our ward family for the first time and I love the atmosphere of friendship and respect that I can feel among us. This is going to be an amazing experience for me and I'm so excited to start this new chapter of my life. 

Optimism 101

I have the best friends. It's a good thing they are such good examples and keep me on the right path. So I have this one friend, and he's an amazing guitarist and singer and overall cool person. Well he texted me this morning and told me that he broke his collarbone mountain biking on Tuesday. My first reaction was shock and then sympathy because that just sounds awful. You know what he said to me? "Well, It sure could have been worse! I still have my arm! :)" So I'm already way impressed by this optimism, but we keep talking and he mentions that he can't play guitar for a few weeks.. But he says "It's pretty lame, but I still have my arm! And it's only a few weeks, right?" Let me remind you, this kid LOVES the guitar. Basically every time I talk to him he mentions playing guitar, or is playing guitar, or just finished playing guitar. I was already a huge admirer of him, but my admiration just shot even farther up the scale. I have to admit, if I broke my collarbone... Or actually probably even my finger bone, I would be moping and bored and overall unpleasant to be around. 

I definitely learned a lesson about optimism today. The best way I can think of to sum up this lesson also comes from this same conversation with my friend: "Well if you look at the lame things, it's... well, lame, right? :)" 

World At My Fingertips

College student. Adult life. The future. Endless possibilities. That's pretty much where I'm at in life right now. The last two and a half months I've been getting ready to leave home and head to college. It's not the first time I've been away from home for a long time by myself, but this is the first time that it will be permanent. I'm ready to go, and I feel like I am prepared to be on my own, but I know that there is a lot I still have to learn. I want to share what I can so that not everyone makes the same mistakes that I will and so that I can (possibly) have a record for posterity. Watch out world.. Here I come!! :) 

<3 G