Dave and Jess

My brother has been dating his girlfriend Jess for close to three years now, and in October, they got engaged! I'm so excited and happy for them. Over Thanksgiving I was able to go take some pictures for them up near the Rose Gardens in Portland. Very fun, despite the rain, and mud...looking forward to seeing them again at Christmas!

Home

I've been counting down the days to Thanksgiving since probably August. Well, not necessarily counting the days, that would be just a little excessive. But it has been something that I have been looking forward to for what seems like forever.
I get to go home on Tuesday. THIS TUESDAY. (I'm sure my parents are smiling at the fact that I'm so excited) Besides the fact that I get to see my fabulous, wonderful, generous parents, there is quite the bundle of other things to look forward to:

- A BIG bed. and sleeping in.
- Food, I mean it's Thanksgiving, and I haven't had my mom's sweet potatoes in quite some time.
- I get to see my favorite brother David and his new fiance, Jess. I've missed them every day since Ragnar this year...I'm also hoping to see Jess's little sis Jackie, who was my partner in crime during Ragnar.
- Bryce is coming with me. He hasn't met any of my family yet except for my wonderful Aunt Karen and her family. It's about time! Plus I get to give him the grand tour of my hometown, of which I am very connected to and proud of.
- Woodburn Outlet mall. Yes, it's making my list. Oregon=no sales tax, need I say more?
- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie night/afternoon/whenever date with my best friends in the world, including Seth, who I haven't seen since August of 2008. Sheesh.
- My parent's GIANT HD TV - good for watching football and playing Wii.
- No class. woot.
- Rain. I miss it every single fall and winter. Forget this snow stuff.
- Give n' Gobble 5k. Ran it with my dad last year, running it again this year.
- Thanksgiving also means Christmas is close to around the corner, and I also love seeing my home look like this:



I'll come prepared to help put up and decorate the Christmas tree, mom.

I've been envisioning the descent into Portland for a while (ok this proves that I am absolutely nuts). My FAVORITE thing about flying home is when the plane finally falls beneath the clouds (and there are always clouds) and all you see is trees trees trees forever and ever. Beautiful Oregon, I'm coming home soon!

Tests

As we round into Friday, I am finishing up my second "exam week" this semester. In the accounting program, they give us the week off from classes (thank goodness) and we have exams in all of our classes (Audit, Systems, and Financial). Conveniently, I guess, my Doctrine and Covenants exams fell on the same weeks as the accounting exams...thus, I have found myself taking 4 exams in 4 days twice this semester (I guess three times once finals come around).
Honestly, it's not that bad. I enjoy not having to worry about homework assignments and being able to have some free time along with my studying.
As of right now, I have completed three of my four exams for this week...BUT.

My most difficult test, intermediate financial accounting is tomorrow (today), and I have to be in the testing center by noon. I've studied for at least a few if not more than several hours today.
percentage of completion, installment sales, cost recovery, earnings management, loan covenants, earnings-based bonus plans, bad debt and warranties, inventory accounting, lower of cost or market, fair value, debt concepts...so. many. concepts. and. problems.

Ready for my fool-proof solution that has yet to fail me in my college career??

stop studying and go to bed.
nighty night.

Update.

I've been dating my boyfriend Bryce for about 4 months now, but have failed to record any of our dating experiences or stories anywhere as of yet. (Part of this is coming from a very direct lesson learned in my Doctrine and Covenants class yesterday about the importance of keeping a personal history or journal...relevant? sure, why not)

Rather than start from day one and proceed from there, I'll just say that once we met, we realized that we got along pretty well, so we spent some more time with one another, and within probably a week you could say we were "together".

Anywho, the summer was nice because both of us were just working, not taking any classes. We spent a lot of time together, and sometimes Bryce would even bring me Subway and cookies while I was at work. I looooooove cookies.
During the summer, I was training for the Ragnar Relay Northwest Passage, and then the Top of Utah Marathon. We started dating a few weeks before I went home for the Relay, and being the great boyfriend that he is, Bryce decided to come running with me on multiple occasions. The first run we went on together was 8 miles. I just had to test him to see if he really liked me as much as it seemed. The first week or so of running with me was a little rough on him, but after some time, Bryce was determined to train for and run the marathon with me. I didn't oppose the idea, but I promise that I did not pressure him at all into that decision. Well, a couple months later (September 18) we finished the marathon, holding hands. It was one of the funnest things I have ever done, seriously. In fact, we were singing "I Believe I Can Fly" at about mile 7.



In August, I went down to San Diego to visit some friends from London. Conveniently, Bryce's family lives in San Diego so we drove down together and I stayed with them for a couple of days. They took us to Sea World one day that I was there. Fun fun fun.



Now we're both busy taking classes at BYU (and Bryce works at the MTC), but we still manage to spend a great deal of time together. Some of our favorite activities include watching football (this is all-inclusive, meaning I go to his intramural games, we go to BYU home games, and we watch college football at home), playing Scrabble, Blokus, or Rook, spending way too much time in Target, Costco, Fye, Macey's, etc. buying movies or 10-pack boxes of Oreo's for $4.97. We do lots of other things, those just seem to be the most common.






Last Friday afternoon we decided to take a drive through the canyon to see what was left of the Fall colors. There were still some very pretty spots, and we enjoyed singing along to random songs on the radio. Before we knew it, we were in good ol' Heber, UT.


Heber Main Street...always hoppin

After exploring main street a little (meaning driving for 5 minutes) we turned around in a Smith's grocery store parking lot. They had some nice looking pumpkins, so we bought 2, along with a bag of candy corn, and carved the pumpkins later that night. Neither of us are very skilled in the art of pumpkin-carving, but it was fun just the same.



Happy Halloween!

Thursday Morning

Today is September 9th, 2010. I'm sitting in my living room, with open textbooks, excel spreadsheets, word documents, notebooks, calculators and pens and pencils surrounding me. Oh the life of an accounting student.
But. I must say...

I LOVE FALL. It's the greatest season ever.

one main reason:



football.

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." Margaret Atwood

Holas!

Somehow it is already July and I have intended to blog many many times …but have obviously failed.

I took Spring classes at BYU, including organ, voice lessons, piano lessons, university chorale, mission preparation, and music fundamentals (which I tested out of the first day of class, thank goodness). I also managed to (finally) complete my independent study course, statistics 221. Some of you have heard me rant and rave about all of the hoops I had to jump through in order to finish that class, but now it is done and I don’t have to stress about it anymore. Anyway, I spent most of spring term in the HFAC tucked away in a practice room. All that practicing seems to have paid off because I got my first 4.0 since my sophomore year of high school. Wahoo!

Besides taking classes, I returned to my wonderful job at Cougar Creations. In addition to the fact that I absolutely love working there…making copies, laminating, book-binding, etc…getting a paycheck every two weeks is a VERY welcome change. Let’s just say that recovery from London is taking a little longer than expected. We’re getting there, though.

So that’s the “boring” side to what I’ve been up to during the past 2 months. Other things that I’m doing for fun…

RAGNARRRRRRR.
I
CANNOT
WAIT.
22 days.
I’ve been training pretty well and hard for this race. There’s not much else to say about it other than I love the feeling of being able to run and run forever. Other races that I’m planning on doing in the near future are the Freedom Run 10k (July 5th), Top of Utah Marathon (September 18th. Yes CJ, I think I’m ready to register.), and the Provo Halloween Half-Marathon (October 30th).
More about Ragnar. Our team name is Gooey Nanners, and I’m running leg numero tres (that’s “three” in Spanish, mom). I made shirts for our team, and finally got them all made today at work. WAHOO.
Ok….so yeah I’ve been running. It’s fun.

I have new roommates, obviously. Brittany, Matz, and Sohea. They’re great, and we’ve done fun things. Some such things include:
Going rappelling in the canyon



Going to Sammy's for the first time for pie shakes and concerts

Throwing and attending awesome dance parties
Bonfires

Painting our living room

Making air pop
Going to IHOP for 2-for-1
Going to movies
Watching So You Think You Can Dance
Doing Pilates workout videos in our living room
etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.

I've also been spending some time with my good ol' friends Anna and Amber, my Oregon buddies. Last weekend I hiked the Y with Anna for her first time ever. I think it was quite the successful hike for the both of us. Amber and I have been spending a lot of time relaxing by the pool.



I've played with my favoritest sister Abby a few times as well. She's moving to Texas with Paul the man on Saturday (boo hiss) so I probably won't see her until Christmastime. I've had fun hanging with them for BBQ's in the canyon or at their house, shopping with Abby, and just talking about everything.

Somehow I managed to go off to San Fransisco with Cam and Calvin, my friends from London, to visit the magnificently talented Laura, my roommate from London. She was performing in a benefit concert for diabetes so that was the main purpose of our trip. I had never been to the city before, and it was pretty awesome. The long drive made for some interesting conversation, too. Top notch weekend for sure.



My mom came down to Utah for a few days just recently, and so spending time with her was pretty great, too. I'll get to see her again in just a few weeks when I go home to Oregon (right before she leaves for Girl's Camp, tee hee hee hee hee).

Aaaannnnnd that's about it. Now I'm not in classes anymore, but my work hours have doubled, so that keeps me kind of busy. And most of the things that I listed that I'm doing I'm still doing. So yeah, spring was good, summer is looking pretty good, too.

How's it gonna feel when London ends? Out of money, out of friends.

Those are lyrics from a song by Cold War Kids, except I changed the word "summer" for "London". I figured it sums things up pretty well.

So, the last few days in London were spent enjoying the beautiful weather, and spending time with all of my favorite people. It was really very nice.

It's already been too long for me to remember all of the different things that we did, but I can certainly remember a few:
- Playing soccer in Hyde Park
- Staying up until 5 a.m. talking with Kira and CJ
- Buying 3 CD's at a the music exchange store on Bayswater
- Eating Nando's Nando's Nando's
- Watching movies galore
- Walking with some of my favorite girls down Oxford Street
- Seeing "Mamma Mia!"
- Doing the paddle boats on the Serpentine in Hyde Park
- Making more animal friends (i.e. swans and squirrels)
- Eating pints of Ben and Jerry's
- Learning from Dr. Susan Howe how to be a poet
- Dancing in the laundry room to JT
- Overdosing on Diet Coke
- Packing :(
- Saying goodbye to friends and London, and shedding a few tears

Pictures from the last week:


Leicester Gardens




Gotta love my home


paddle-boating in Hyde Park




Seeing planes flying out was a little surreal...I left the next morning

Well, I added it up, and the time I left the London Centre to the time I walked into my Aunt Karen's house in Lehi, UT was about 47 hours. Means of transportation included the following:
- Tube from Queensway to Bond Street, then Bond Street to Victoria
- Gatwick Express from Victoria to LGW
- Airplane from London to Fiumicino (nope, I didn't see a wink of Rome. And yes, I'm still bitter)
- Overground train in the airport
- Sketch Taxi to hotel near the airport
- Not-so-sketch shuttle back to the airport
- Plane from Fiumicino to Washington D.C.
- Plane from D.C. to Denver
- Plane from Denver to SLC
- Car from SLC to Lehi

I. Crashed. SO HARD.

So yeah, I've been back in the good ol' U.S. of A. for a little over a week now, and I think I have readjusted pretty well. I forced myself to get over jet lag as soon as possible, and it worked alright, except I think I'm still catching up on lost sleep from the past four months. I sleep a lot.

So I guess life is back to "normal" now. I'm back in Provo, with a new apartment, new roommates, new classes...same work. Just call me the copy queen. Being back has it's perks, though. I've been able to see so many people that I missed and catch up with all of them. There are still a few that I have yet to see. Between seeing family, friends, and former roommates, I guess you could say I've been busy...but honestly, sometimes I don't know what to do with myself. What on earth DID I DO before London?!!? I'll figure it out.

Best of all, I have my Nikon back in my possession. I used this blog solely for my photos before London, but now I have a little bit of a blogging obsession. We'll see what happens with it from this point forward.

Well, I guess I should put some sort of finishing BAM to my London experience. I may be one to be cheesy at times, but I'm not very good at being sentimental. I guess I can just say that London was the most fun I've had my entire life, and I can't help but smile every time I look back at pictures and memories. Even more importantly, I learned so much - about myself and everything else. Best decision of my life thus far. Well done, self.

ˈɛɪjaˌfjatlaˌjœːkʏtl̥ - you suhprice I aspeak you langagee?

So, I'm supposed to be spending my first night in Rome tonight. Instead, I'm still in the London Center in...you guessed it...London. You've heard about it, Eyjafjallajökull...the Icelandic (Icelandish?) volcano spewing ash all over the place, keeping planes on the ground. Mother Earth is alive and well, my friends. We all knew as earthquake after earthquake hit other parts of the world, it was only a matter of time before something happened over here. This just happened at a really inconvenient time. Everyone else on the program not traveling after the program was supposed to be flying home to the U.S. today.
Well, what can you do?
Oh wait, I'm still in London, one of the most exciting cities on the planet.

ok, I'm cool with that. At least for now.

So yeah, we're still having a good time, enjoying the absolutely beautiful spring weather. No signs of ash here.

On Thursday, I only had two finals. I took one in the morning, and then went out with Michelle. We went to Borough Market (just can't get enough) and then took a walk down to Tower Bridge, crossed it, and walked back along the Thames. We came upon a WWI and WWII memorial for the Navy. It had names of all of the UK men and women lost at sea during both wars.

We came home, took our last final, and then had a little show before dinner. Professor Macfarlane sang his own rendition of "The Wizard and I" from Wicked...one of those things that you really can't appreciate unless you saw it yourself. It certainly helped to clear the cloud of stress that had been around for the past few days with finals. We then had a pizza party dinner with Ben's cookies. Yum.


Front stoop picture

Seeing as we were still planning on this being one of our last days here, a bunch of us went to Les Miserables. My second time seeing it in London. The lady sitting next to me sobbed throughout the entire show. Most of the cast was the same as the first time, with a few changes. The new Jean Valjean was absolutely incredible, I couldn't believe how good he was. It's still one of my favorite shows.

Yesterday we took it pretty easy. Another trip to Borough for lunch, a nice afternoon nap, and a walk through Hyde Park summed up most of the day. Then a bunch of us decided to go see "Dear John", another movie that's been out in the U.S. for a while but just recently came out here. I really, really did not like that movie. The last movie I did not enjoy as much as that one was probable "The Family Stone"...remember that one? You don't? Well, it was bad.

Today my cold that I've been denying I have finally took it's toll on my body, and I couldn't really get out of bed until noon. Luckily, Michelle came back a couple hours later to check on me, and we went out for most of the afternoon. The big event in London today was the Tulip Festival at Trafalgar Square. Basically it's just a big celebration of Holland and beer and everyone wears Orange. We walked all the way there, and then had fun people watching and listening to music.


Where's Waldo? ope...there he is.



Oh, and Abby. I finally went to The Spaghetti House tonight, upon your recommendation. It was very good. A nice substitute for the Italian dinner I would have had in Rome tonight.

3 down, 2 to go.

*Disclaimer: I have a lot of random, and perhaps unnecessary detail in this blog. Forgive me, my brain is fried. Fried, and dipped in tartar sauce.

I have successfully taken three of my five finals today. Rarely, in fact, I want to say NEVER, have I had actual written finals, like essay stuff. All of the ones today were like that. I think the closest in the past has been the written portion on my calculus final, but even then, it was just numbers and stuff. Essay finals are hard. Props to majors who actually have to do that regularly. All I have left is religion and culture finals. Piece. of. cake.

sponge cake.

Alright, as promised...events of the weekend.

Saturday was wonderful, as expected. It was one of those days where I just did everything I felt so inclined to do, without any stress or pressure.
So I left my little travel alarm clock on the coach accidentally after the North Trip a couple of weeks ago, and have been relying on Michelle to whack me in the mornings to wake me up ever since. I had a pep talk with her the other night, telling her that she was getting too nice, and that her "waking up skills" were waning in effectiveness. Anyway, she stayed up late studying the night before, and so since she slept in, I ended up sleeping in. I thought it was a good excuse.
After a lazy-ish morning, we got ready and headed out to Covent Garden, for the ballet, "Cinderella" at the Royal Opera House by the Royal Ballet. We got crepes at Creme de la Crepe right before, and headed in to the ballet. I'm pretty sure the only ballet I've ever seen has been The Nutcracker in Portland a couple of times. This performance was stunning, there really aren't words to describe.

Michelle and I then headed back to the center, changed out of our heels, and then went and got kebabs and took them to the park and had a little mini picnic and people watched for a while. We took a walk over to Portabello Road, for probably the last time, to get some souvenirs for family and friends (get excited) and just enjoyed the street. It was pretty late in the afternoon, so the street was mostly cleared of all of the stands and the thousands of people that crowd it during the morning.


I always love walking by this store, but never realized that it's actually a clothing store, but all of the walls are covered floor to ceiling with these old sewing machines. It's sooooo cooooool


Portabello Road and Market - gonna miss it.

So we got back and figured that the day was pretty much done. You know, we didn't have any more big plans, and were probably just going to start studying for finals and such. But Brittany came in and said a few girls were going to Nando's (of course) and then to a movie at Whitefield Mall. Like always, it didn't take long to convince me that fun is more important that studies.
Since I had just eaten, I just got bottomless frozen yogurt at Nando's, but ended up eating 4+ cup fulls. mmmm. I then watched Karalyn, Brittany, Kira, and Michelle get milkshakes at Sblended. And then we slid around on the traction-less mall floor for a while since it was essentially closed down for the night.
Movie of choice: WHIP IT!
I guess this movie has been out for a while in the States, but I had never heard of it, and had no clue what it was about. Well, was I in for a surprise. My first impression was "what the heck am I watching?" and then after about ten more minutes I realized that it was the best movie ever. Laughed the whole time. It's kind of like a girl power movie, but so so so much better. I mean, it's about roller derby, so it's got to be entertaining. As we left the theater, we pretended to "whip it" as we slid out of the mall on the slippery floor. There's something about malls...it's like it doesn't count as a public space - you can act ridiculous and it's ok.

On the tube ride home there were a few creepers, but I gave them the death glare and we made it home safe.

Sunday, sunday, sunday sunday sunday sunday. LAST sunday.


me in front of the Peckham Chapel - check out the lady in the background, though. seriously. I laughed for two minutes.

Tori and I were not so terribly sad about this being our last Sunday in this ward, but as we left I think we both were a little sad. It was a really good last Sunday. During sacrament meeting, Bro. Bradley (precious, shy, English man, who is a counselor in the bishopric) stood up and thanked the BYU students for our service in the ward, and then promptly announced that I would be getting up to bear my testimony, followed by Tori. I should have seen it coming. Oh well, it was fine, and hopefully I said something meaningful.
Primary was great, the kids were pretty well-behaved, and I swear they sang their best for me since it was my last time playing the keyboard for them. I didn't end up getting any pictures with them, but I'll definitely remember Edwyn, Ko Fi, Abdul, Ko Jo, Angel, Victoria, Sabrina, Andre, and all the others. Love them all and their craziness.
I honestly didn't really get to know any of the adults, since I was always at the piano during sacrament meeting, but Tori and I had a favorite missionary, Elder Ellsworth, who always said hello to us and was serving in the ward the whole time we were there. We told him that we thought he was a really great missionary as we left and said bye, and he did an awkward laugh and looked slightly embarrassed. Oooooohhhh missionaries. They can be so awkward.

That night we had a testimony meeting with the whole group for our fireside, which was awesome. It just reminded me how far we've all come together as a group and how great everyone is. Everything said was really genuine and I loved it all. We all spent most of the night acting goofy, still postponing our studies for finals.

I'm pretty sure the last few days have been devoted to finals studying...
oh, on Monday I went on a run with CJ and then later attempted to study in the park with Kira, Brittany, and Mary Kate. That didn't last long.
Tuesday Michelle, Kira, Brittany, and I had a lunch trip to Nando's where we had a "no finals talk" rule. We mostly ended up just talking about how weird it is that we're leaving London already.
Other than that, I've been in the center for the past two days, leaving once or twice for trips to Food and Wine, a little convenience store around the corner with plenty of Diet Coke and chocolate.

I've got two more days in London...who knows how much stuff I'll cram into those days.

*Good news. Packed up pretty much all of my stuff, and it looks like I'll be able to fit it all comfortably in my suitcase. My backpack weighs about 23491834571098 lbs, though.

Study Break

Today I finally realized that I should maybe start studying for all of my finals on Wednesday. Needless to say, my head hurts, and my eyes are tired from staring at my computer all day long. BUT. They aren't too tired to aid me in recounting the wonderful days from last week.

Wednesday:
Instead of going on a day trip, we got to go see the Houses of Parliament. Parliament...cool. They like make the laws and stuff, right? And liiiike....Sherlock Holmes jumps out of the Parliament building into that big river near the end of the movie, right? Ok, yeah. cool.
No, actually I really loved touring Parliament. They gave us the most wonderful little booklet/pamphlets as we waited to enter the building, and I am not joking when I say that I was in the group with the best tour guide ever. He takes first place. Gold star, blue ribbon, MVTG (most valuable tour guide). Let me give you an example. So he's going off talking about the rooms and telling us all sorts of history and information, and then he says, "oh, and that's a bust of Queen Elizabeth...that reminds me, I need to buy stamps..." Funny, right?
Now whenever I'm sitting in front of the TV watching Parliament, I can say "I've BEEN THERE!" We also watched the speaker enter the house of commons. It was pretty anticlimactic, but kind of fun to watch.
After Parliament, we went into the Cabinet War rooms and the Winston Churchill museum. It was fun to wander around the war rooms, and the Churchill museum had some pretty high-tech displays. Not to mention that we had audio guides too. Score.
It was kind of a rainy day, so we went back to the center right after the museum. I can't remember what I did that afternoon. Welp, I'm sure it was good.
After dinner that night, Brittany, Kira, and Mary convinced me that I should go see Wicked again with them. I didn't need much convincing, since I hadn't seen it for a few months, and I really really liked it. Once we got there, I knew that it was a good choice. The cast was completely new, and I had a different view of the stage, but still awesome tickets. Good stuff.

Thursday was my last day of classes! Wahoo. I had all five of them, and then quickly got ready and headed out for a walk to the National Gallery. It was so sunny and warm out, and I loved people watching as I walked through Hyde Park, around Buckingham Palace, through bits of St. James park, and then through the crowds at Trafalgar Square. I had never seen this area so busy before. The sun certainly brings people out of their homes. I saw men in suits with bright red socks sitting on park benches, people taking dips in the Serpentine Pond in their knickers, couples making out in the grass, etc etc etc. Oh springtime. I also got stopped for directions. That always makes me feel good.


St. James Park

I took a couple of swings past some paintings for Classics, and then took another swing past a few of my favorite paintings before jetting back on the tube for dinner. It was an excellent afternoon on my own.


I had never seen Trafalgar Square so busy. Very fun to people watch a bit.

I'm pretty sure Thursday night was fun too...but cramming for finals has pushed those memories out of my ears. How depressing.

Friday was really fun. The whole group took a boat cruise from Westminster Pier down to Greenwich. The sun was out, and it was great just to hang out with everyone and take a look at the city from the river.

We watched this video about 3 times as we were getting ready for the morning. "THIS BOAT IS REAAAALLLLL!!"



London Eye


Tower Bridge


Mary Kate, Karalyn, Kira, Brittany

Once we hopped off in Greenwich, pretty much everyone walked straight up to the Royal Observatory. For those of you who don't know, Greenwich is where time started. Yep. That's what they told us. It's also where you can straddle the Prime Meridian. That was essentially the biggest highlight from the museum.


I skyped for my first time ever with Michelle and talked to Amber later that night. She said, "...you straddled WHAT?!?"


Look ma, I'm in two hemispheres at once!




Greenwich.

We left Greenwich soon after the Observatory, with a little bit of walking around the town, and we even popped into the Greenwich market and had a look around. The food looked really good, but we were all holding out for Borough Market.

Borough is a great place...in case I haven't stressed that enough. This time I let Brittany work her magic with the baklava men and she got me the most delicious "diamond" baklava. Thanks Brittany, you're a pal.


Borough...lots of people = hard to get good pictures.

After we got back, I decided that I wanted to go for another walk. So I did. This time I stayed in Hyde Park, and I took my ipod. I spent about an hour and a half and managed to get over to the east side of the park, where I haven't spent a ton of time. It is so beautiful here.





Later that night, I went with a few girls to Harrods. It was a cool place to see, but basically the coolest thing for me was seeing the decoration of the actual walls and ceilings. Everything else was too expensive to even touch. We didn't stay very long.
Like I said, that night Michelle and I got on her computer and skyped with Amber back in Provo. Fun fun fun.

Well...I think that was a long enough study break. So long, in fact, that I'm going to sleep now. I'll leave Saturday-Mondays events for tomorrow. Toodles.