roommates

the roommates I have had while attending BYU have made my experience so fantastic.

Freshman year, I was blessed with six crazy fun and amazing roommates to help me with the transition to BYU and made the year a blast!

the endless pranks with Arianne were fantastic. like the time when we hid all her stuff in our closets while she was out of town and wrote the above eviction notice. the dollar coin made it even better because we found those all around our apartment and we never knew where they came from.

Many other adventures ensued. We went to the Girl's Choice Harry Potter dance and made super awesome costumes. Arianne was Hermione, Shelby was Luna, Ellen was Ginny, Hannah was Trelawney, Ashley was Parvati (?), and I was Umbridge!

One time, Ashley, Arianne, and I decided to ride the bus to the mall. It was semi-confusing but we made it there in one piece and had a fun time! We also had many candy poker nights with us and our sometimes our favorite missionary friends. We would use all our creamery money to buy a buttload of candy and play poker all night! sometimes I miss those days!

trying to find our way to the mall 

all ready for the Harry Potter dance!

playing candy poker!

Sadly, the year came to an end and in May I headed up to Aspen Grove for my summer job. I didn't know anyone and I can't believe how crazy I was to do that! However, I was again so blessed to have some awesome roommates. Sharon was so great and we got along fantastically well. We loved to hike and exercise, were obsessed with a lot of the same things, and she could talk for hours and I was content listening to all her crazy stories about boys. Rachel was pretty awesome too, very nice and clean, but we did not see her a lot! (she was dating someone!)

Rachel, Sharon, and I

 The summer  came and went and my sophomore year I lived with Ashley and Arianne again, and one new roommate, Whitney. Whitney was a hip-hop dancer superstar, an awesome baker, and was super nice! We had more fun adventures... going to plays, having dance parties and roommate dinners, going to football games and concerts, and going to tons of fun activities with the best ward ever!

after some play we all went to see.

at one of the BYU football games.

We tried to make headbands. I failed miserably and got hot glue all over my clothes!

Whitney and I dancing it up in our apartment

roommate dinner :)

Ashley and I after true blue football

                                                                                    

Sophomore year was so fantastic. Lots of learning and growing and dying in hard chem classes, but playing just as hard! I am so grateful for the fantastic roommates I had. (It was my last year being any of their roommates... a hard change!) 

For my second summer at Aspen Grove, I was so lucky to be paired with some of the most amazing roommates ever. Julia, Kelli, and Nico were my trailer buddies and we pretty much did everything together... boondoggle making, scary movie nights, Sammy's runs, camping at Zion's, dance parties in the morning, etc... living with them was like a party all summer long!  

Me, Mayra, and Ashley

 Junior year was probably the craziest year. I was so darn busy all the time!  I also had two sets of roommates as I chose to move apartments in the middle of fall semester. I started off living with Mayra, Ashley, and Sarah. I really got to know Mayra and Sarah well and they were such fun girls. I loved my Cocoa Bean runs with Mayra and the late night chats where Sarah and I just laughed and laughed. Moving out was a difficult decision, but it was for the best.                                                                            

Sarah and I

 So, I packed up all my stuff in one night (coincidentally, we had cleaning checks the next day... yikes!) and moved two doors down. I had my own room for a couple months before my friend Anne moved in. Living with Katie and Kristina rocked. They are so nice and spiritual and just super awesome girls! Our favorite pastime was to hide this little plastic rat in each other's belongings. This went on for quite awhile!

I believe Katie is responsible for this super awesome hairdo.

  Katie and I celebrating our fall birthdays at Tucano's!

This one time, Katie and I hung out a lot. before she became a student teacher and had to do all this stuff for her students and work a job at school. So one day, we randomly set up a tent in my old living room and had a sleepover. It was a blast! I can't believe she is graduating and maybe leaving Provo!

at the homecoming parade with some cool people (Jen and Leah) and my roommate Katie.

 

 Katie and I making delicious macaroni themed creations for our ward dinner. 

the four amigos. (anne, kristina, katie, me)

Anne was so stellar! We shared a room during winter semester and had so much fun! We talked about everything, watched each other sleep (just kidding), distracted each other from studying, and did generally other fun things. She is now putting in her mission papers! crazy! I will miss her a lot!

I am also moved out of Park Plaza for good! It will forever hold a special place in my heart (cliche I know.)  It's super bittersweet because I loved loved loved my ward and the complex, but I am ready for the changes and fun that await me at the Colony!!! and the summer party that Aspen Grove holds!

chilled to the bone

today was a crazy day of family camp. swimming in cold and windy weather. followed by an afternoon of rain. and then some snow and more tornado-like wind during frontier night.

I wore two sweatshirts and my heavy winter coat.

my summer bucket list (and goals)

go to seven peaks
go to a fair and watch fireworks on fourth of july

hike Cascade Springs
go on a date or two
hike Timp

 work hard to make every week awesome for the Cubs and not let 

my own desires ruin their vacation
find new ways to study scriptures and make it a priority
index 3 batches a week
spend 10% or less of what I earn
be more daring

lay in the hammock

read at least 3 books (one spiritual)

lay out and watch the stars/meteor shower

magnify my calling

start listening to the Harry Potter books

be more friendly and party more

here's to a hopefully magical summer!

I'm getting sentimental

I had the most wonderful time being at home with my family and just relaxing. I am going to miss them a ton!

my time at home was filled with: 

an awesome Harry Potter party

pumpkin juice (this took forever to make!)

bro's epic costume

 

 sis. they're so spirited

 making acid pops

yumm... cockroach clusters

 

acid pops

pumpkin pasties 

playing with my cute dog

 she's quite cute in real life. she just looks scary here.

getting ready for another long summer of camp

celebrating my best GPA yet!
hanging out with my crazy fun sister

 

setting some new goals for the coming school year

getting addicted to Diet Coke (thanks mom)

obsessively watching the following shows:  

playing Just Dance

taking care of my sister after she fainted. (scary)

going to get groceries for my siblings practically every day! 

trying some new recipes

laughing over silly youtube videos with the fam

spending some much needed time with my gamecube

lunch dates with my sis 

getting pinterest hacked. it's better than getting facebook hacked.

while I was home, my mom went to Kansas to help her grandma pack up her stuff. She all brought us back some "treasures." this book was my brother's and I thought it was hilarious. I almost stole it, but... my books were "Dishes Men Like" and "Science For Today and Tomorrow." they are pretty awesome themselves. 

and now, it's time to head back to Provo tomorrow! woot!

This Could Be Paradise

I think it's about time that I blogged about my adventure to Hawaii. one of the most fantastic trips ever. and somehow, I didn't fail all my classes, even if missing the whole week of school made the last half of the semester death!!!

the week began with being stuck in an airplane for forever! definitely my least favorite part. (except for we had to wake up at like 4:00 to go to the airport!) it was so great to get to Vegas and see my family and get ready for the fun adventure ahead! Finally after 6 hours on the plane we made it to Maui! the rest of the day involved getting our rental cars and groceries, but we got to watch the sunset on the beach. and we saw the first 2 whales on our trip!

Friday may have been one of my favorite days. We set aside most of the day to hang out at the beach. and we even got a fair amount of sun! and for me, that meant actually getting a little tan. but what made it awesome was the fact that I fulfilled my dream of getting to swim with dolphins. we had rented snorkel gear for the week and we headed out to find some cool fish. my sister noticed that there were dolphins swimming around. we swam out to them and there was a whole school of them. even little baby dolphins. they were so cute and it was pretty much the coolest experience ever!!! after the beach, we headed off for a long drive up to the top of this really tall mountain to go on a hike. It was super awesome up there because it looked like you could just go walk on the clouds.  However, seeing as we were going to Hawaii, none of us packed warm clothes and the mountain ended up being freezing. Although it was super pretty and we wanted to go on the hike, we were just wayyyy too cold! as you can see, we all ended up freezing and huddling together for warmth.For tradition's sake, we ended the day watching the sun set. Someone was there playing guitar and it was so relaxing to just listen to the waves and the beautiful music.

Saturday began with driving around the island to see many cool sights. that's the thing about Maui is you have to drive like 2 hours to get anywhere. and some of the roads are super windy or really thin or by a huge cliff and you think you are going to die! the first stop on the road of death was one of the coolest hikes I have ever been on. it starts out in a kind of rainforest like climate, then you are headed into bamboo forests and finally, make your way out to a beautiful waterfall! part of the hike had lots of long wooden boards like bridges and we had fun doing crazy yoga poses. too bad I don't have any pictures of this! after that, we stopped at some hidden pools to swim. however, they didn't seem that fun to swim in (the tide was really high and we probably would have just been carried out into the sharp rocks) so we just watched the waves crash in for awhile. I almost lost my flip-flops thanks to those crazy pools. then we stopped at the perfect beach. the waves were built for body surfing and boogie boarding. even though there was not any sun, I just had to get in and have some fun! we ended the night with a delicious dinner at Outback (yay gift cards!) and then we all crashed and went to bed.

Sunday we headed off to some random ward for sacrament meeting. After church, we went on a whale watching cruise and were lucky enough to see some whales... flirting I guess. they even put a microphone in the water and you could hear the whales clicking. we then headed off to where else but the beach. we headed out for some more snorkeling at the best place we found so far. There was a reef a little way off the shore and we even saw a sea turtle! one of the weirdest/coolest things is you can hear some much while out snorkeling. you can hear all the little shrimp clicking and you could even hear the whales kind of moaning and it was awesome!

us whale watching!

On Monday, we drove out to a snorkeling beach that my parents had been to on their first trip to Maui that was supposed to be really cool, but they had closed it to help protect the environment :( so we went back to our favorite snorkeling beach and were able to see 2 more sea turtles and a lot of cool fish. said beach also had some sort of reputation as a nudist beach... every day there were people who were a little scantily clad. ew. we headed home from the beach starving and hit up the mall for some beach burgers. we then wanted to go to another mall that my dad thought was super close and so we ended up like walking 2 miles up this huge hill. good thing we got to take a taxi back to our car! we ended the day with another beautiful sunset, shopping, and fish tacos. 

On Tuesday, we went to hike at Iao Valley. It was gorgeous. looking at the huge cliffs covered in fog, it really just made me think of Avatar. the hike was pretty cool. (we snuck off the path to go further and explore. don't tell.) there was also this really cool cave with lots of vines hanging over it and it looked straight out of one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. so naturally I loved it. after the hike, we continued driving around the island to one of my other favorite places. there were more pools to swim in, but again the waves were huge. instead, we just sat and watched them crash against the cliffs. it was gorgeous. we went to a huge blowhole and it was so windy we almost died. but it wouldn't be a family vacation for us without a little risk. we then went back to our hotel to relax and get dolled up for the LUAU! the luau was delicious and the best part was the open bar! even though I was 21, I stuck with several virgin lava flows! the dancing part was just as crazy because the men were a little scandalous in their native attire and it was a windy night. we all got a kick out of that :)


Wednesday was our last beach day. we were blessed with sun and so I was able to get more tan. we also snorkeled and boogie boarded for the last time. we then headed off to Lahaina to get some lunch and to shop. I tried on several sun dresses but did not find anything I wanted enough! I did get several fun souvenirs for myself and friends! we watched our last sunset and I learned how to skip rocks! the night ended with some late night pizza hut and going to bed early so we could wake up for our flight home!

the best part of the trip is all the crazy jokes my family comes up with. for every strange thing, we would say "that awkward moment when..." we also made jokes about all the crazy tiki statues. "oh bennett.... I didn't know they had a statue of you here. my sister and I got a kick out of all the crazy signs by the beach. like the one to the left. writing this blog post... I already miss it so much and I hope that I can head back to Maui some day. it was so gorgeous! below there are several other fun pictures from the trip that I could not fit in anywhere else!

well... time to do something a little more productive! this took way too much time, especially with my computer spazzing out and deleting half the post! I have just been hanging out at home as of late with my wonderful family (post to follow later), but greater adventures are about to happen and hopefully I will have the time to blog about them!