My latest adventures

The last few weeks of my life can be explained in one word: busy! Here are a few things that I've done lately.

#1 My most recent adventure: seeing Toy Story 3 in 3D!


Now obviously that isn't in 3D right there, but I absolutely LOVED TS3!!!! I would put up pictures of my dressing up as Barbie for when I went to see it, but my computer is having issues, so I don't have any recent pictures uploaded on my computer as of late. However, if you are my facebook friend, you can take a looksee on there instead! :)

#2 I took a little trip to Northern Utah/Southeastern Idaho to take my 3rd diagnostic exam. I spent two and a half days in Logan at my older brother's house preparing for the test and then I got to spend time with both of my brothers, my sister-in-law, my niece, and my younger brother's fiance. The last day and a half of my trip was spent at my friend Jessica's place and I played with some of my Hobbit Hole roomies. :) Good times, good times!

#3 I'm taking an online Teachings of the Living Prophets class right now. Even though it is a lot of work because it's a 2 or 3 credit class crammed into a block class, I still love it. I spent basically two whole days reading talks from General Authorities and it was FABULOUS! I got to choose some of the talks I had to read to do a journal entry on and those talks were JUST what I needed to hear (read?) at the time. I love being a spiritual highs!

#4 This coming weekend, I get to go see the Manti pageant with my singles ward!! I haven't seen it since I was in Young Womens, so I am so excited to go see it again, and with some really fun people in my ward no less! Yippee!

#5 Fathers Day!! I love my daddy. He is amazing and wonderful and has taught me soooo much. He has always been a great leader for me in my life. I have learned some great things from him on how to be a good teacher. There are so many more things I could and need to say about him, but I am working an opening shift at the store tomorrow and I need to get some shut-eye.

Until next time!

Things I love

I love my family more than anything.

I love my friends and depend on them more than they may realize.

I love to smile and laugh/giggle.

This may come as a shock, but I love Disney.

I love Mickey Mouse.

I love Beauty and the Beast, Princess and the Frog, The Little Mermaid, and all three of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

I love to perform, whether it is singing, dancing, or acting (or doing all three at the same time).

Sandra Bullock is my favorite actress.

Johnny Depp is my favorite actor.

Besides my home and being in the temple, Disney World is my favorite place in the ENTIRE world.

I love visiting characters in the Disney Parks and I am willing to wait in line for an hour to visit my favorites if there is no other time that I can do it.

I love to read. Before this spring, I hadn't been able to read for pleasure because of how busy I was with school. I now have some downtime and I love filling it with reading many, many books.

I love to read childrens literature.

I love learning about people and their pasts.

I love to dance.

I love experiencing and learning cultures from all over the world.

I love to help people.

I love to write stories or just express myself through the written word.

I love children. Sometimes I prefer to be around them rather than adults because I feel I identify with them better on some levels.

I love dogs and puppies. I like cats too, but I prefer canines to felines.

I love chocolate.

I love popcorn. Especially either movie theater popcorn or the stuff you get in the Disney parks.

I love Zebra Domes, which are a specialty dessert made exclusively at the Animal Kingdom Lodge in Disney World.

I love to take pictures and then arrange those pictures to tell stories.

I love beauty pageants.

I love to learn.

I love to bake.

I love to swim and be in water.

I love to watch "Popples," which was a show that was available to watch on video in the early 90's.

I love to daydream.

I love overcoming obstacles.

I love my savior, Jesus Christ.

I love to dress up for holidays (Valentines Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Independence Day, Patriot Day, Christmas, Halloween)

I love to dress up as a character from a movie when I see a movie I have been looking forward to seeing on opening night.

I love attending midnight showings of movies.

I love to be girly and dress up and pretend I'm a princess.

I love to sleep.

I love improving my singing voice.

I love watching a child experience an 'aha!' moment after teaching them something.

I love bright colors, particularly pink.

I love making crafty things.

I love experimenting with my looks (hair, clothes, accessories).

I love traveling by plane and having a window seat.

I love star-gazing.

I love to watch movies and quote them.

I love candy.

I love crossing things off "To Do" lists.

I love babies.

I love to decorate and make things look festive or pretty.

I love to organize.

Happy 24th birthday to me!

Today is my 24th birthday! I don't really have very many plans today, to be completely honest. I'm substituting for my dad's TV classes all this week, so I got to start my day around 6:30am today. :P When I was a kid, I got up that early voluntarily because I was so excited about my birthday and the festivities of the day. But now, I'm boring and I am not too crazy about getting up any time before 9am on my birthday. Oh well. I get to celebrate the beginning of my 24th year and get paid for supervising my dad's classes. I can do that. :)

So I know I used this picture in my previous post about going to Disney World, but I decided that while I was in Disney World, I would celebrate my birthday while I was there.

I played in the parks on Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday and I got my birthday pin on Saturday. So I didn't get to wear it during the entire Disney visit, but I wore it three out of the four days, so I got some good use out of it.

I watched the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! street party on Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday and I got the best reaction from Mickey on Saturday. On Friday, Courtney and I didn't know which side Mickey would be on during the parade, so we ended up being on the opposite side of where he was. I decided that I loved the parade (and Mickey) enough that I was going to sacrifice going to the Block Party Bash on Saturday (since Mickey wasn't even in that parade in Hollywood Studios) and go to the Street party again instead.

Courtney and I staked out our spot well before the party started so that by the time it did start and everyone realized what was happening, no one could take our PERFECT spot. I was wearing my birthday button and so a lot of the parade performers noticed and wished me a happy birthday. :) Once all the floats got to their spots in the Hub circle, the announcer did a "celebrate roll call" for everyone to say what they were celebrating. Courtney and I already knew what the procedure was from experiencing it the day before, so I was ready to give my shout out. I made sure I was visible to Mickey so he would see my button. Before they even did the roll call, Mickey pointed at my button to show that he saw it and then he clapped for me. :) So once they did do the roll call, he zeroed right in on me and 'cheered'. It made me really happy.

After a few minutes, they invited everyone to come out into the street and jam with the performers. Mickey stayed on his float, but Donald came down and was the center of a dance circle. A lot of the other characters got off their floats to come into the street too, but we were between the main float with Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Minnie and Genie's float with some other characters. A PhotoPass person managed to get some pictures of Courtney and I dancing and then he gave us a card with the pictures on them, so you can get an idea of what the dance party looked like.


It was SO hot, but SO much fun!! I even got a video of Mickey 'accepting' a kiss I blew to him by touching his heart when he saw me do it. I loved the party so much that I went one more time on Tuesday before I left Wednesday to go home. It was fun, but Saturday was more fun because Mickey was more responsive to me. That and we got to do a Conga line on Friday and Saturday, but for some reason they cut it out on Tuesday. Oh well. Go figure.

We'll see what birthday surprises are in store for me today. It's supposed to be kind of rainy and gloomy, so I am going to try to make up for that by watching some kind of Disney movie. Maybe Beauty and the Beast or Princess and the Frog. Or Pirates of the Caribbean! I don't know, there's just so many choices to choose from!

Trip to Disney World

MAN I love Disney World! I will write about more of the specifics later, but for now I'll just do the basics.

Thursday:
- Arrived in Florida after 4 hours of flying and nearly 3 hours waiting to have our plane de-iced before taking off.
- Downtown Disney with Megan and Courtney
- Kitchen Sink with Courtney, Bryce, and a few friends

Friday:
Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios with Courtney

Saturday:
Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge, Magic Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios with Courtney



Sunday:
Church at new building with Buena Vista YSA ward
Dinner with Uncle Brad, Aunt Debi, David, Whitney, and Melanie

Monday:
Epcot with Uncle Brad, Aunt Debi, David, Whitney, and Melanie
Animal Kingdom by myself

Tuesday:
Hollywood Studios and Downtown Disney with Uncle Brad, Aunt Debi, David, Whitney, and Melanie
Magic Kingdom by myself



Wednesday:
Breakfast at Denny's with Celeste
Drove to airport with Uncle Brad, Aunt Debi, David, Whitney, and Melanie

Next week.....

I get to go to Disney World!!!!!!!!

My parents are giving me a trip to go to WDW as a graduation present, so we have been figuring out a schedule for me to go down there for almost a week. For the first half of my trip, I'm staying with one of my favorite friends, Courtney,

who is probably the only person I know that truly understands my obsession with characters. We're going to meet a whole bunch of characters and play in the parks while I stay with her.

Then for the second half of the trip, I'm going to spend my time with some of my Uncle Brad's family because my cousin Whitney is following in mine and our cousin Dayna's footsteps and she is working in WDW on her own college program. I am so jealous that she gets to be working down there right now. But I am really excited to get to spend some time with some of my cousins and my aunt and uncle because I haven't gotten to do very much with them in the past.

Yay for going to one of my favorite places on earth!!!

Now that I have a little downtime...

I haven't been able to have any real downtime for the last three months, so I am going to take this opportunity to do some needed writing without feeling guilty that I'm not doing homework (cause I have none! :D).

We'll start with the most recent.


One week ago today, I walked for graduation at BYU-Idaho. I still have some things to do (like student teaching) before I technically 'graduate,' but as for classes and college life at BYU-Idaho, I am done. I may visit my friends once or twice in the next month, but as for being an actual student on the BYU-I campus I am DONE!

I have really enjoyed my time at BYU-I. I have made many, many wonderful friends who I will probably keep for life. I have lived in quite a few places all over campus and I have participated in a lot of activities. One of my previous roommates, Deanna graduated this semester too(see below)

and she just did a statistics report of her time at BYU-I on her blog, so I suppose I will do the same (only I'll put my own spin on it).

1st semester LIVING at BYU-I: Fall 2005
1st semester of school at BYU-I: Winter 2006
Last semester of school at BYU-I: Winter 2010

Places I lived at BYU-I: Nauvoo House, Riviera, Crestwood Cottage, Hillcrest

Roommate total: 33 (36 if you count my off-track in Disney World)

Activities/events: Broadway Revue, Battle of the Dance (twice), Collegiate Dancers Showcase (twice)

Groups: Education Society, Collegiate World dance team

Wards: 54th, 1st, 85th, 5th, 38th (I think that's all of them)

I loved attending school at BYU-I. I actually had the honor of being there when the dean of our school, President Kim B. Clark was inaugurated by President Hinckley. It was really cool. I wasn't in the Hart, but I watched it being broadcasted in one of the overflow buildings and that was very cool. President and Sister Clark felt like the father and mother of our university. They were always so loving when they spoke to us at devotionals and you could tell from listening to them talk how much they loved each one of us.

I would do a stat report of all the guys that I had crushes on, but that's a little too personal and I don't want to get that detailed (partially cause I don't want to admit to the number of guys I liked).

Okey dokey, now that I've got my school stats reported, I'll start thinking about the things that I've wanted to write about but didn't have time to write about.

I'm in a weird state of being right now. I'm not quite to student teaching, so I'm still technically a student. But I'm done with the majority of my college career. I suppose part of the reason why I feel like I am in a weird state of being is because I am removed from BYU-I-DO (which is a nickname that many of us that have attended there have come up with because of how many marriages/proposals happen there). During my last semester of school, I felt like a good chunk of good mature guys at school that I could end up with were gone already. I do admit that there was one guy who I became very good friends with who I think would be a good match for me, but he's not going to be done with school for another 2 years..... so yeah. I really would like to do more stuff with this guy, but he and I are in different states (literally) now and I don't know how I can do very much with him. I do have to make one more trip up to Rexburg within the next month, so maybe I can find a way to do something fun with him while I am there.

While I'm at it, I'll go back down memory lane and talk about some of my favorite things from my past.

"Those your skiis? Both of em?" Man, this movie has so many great quotes from it. My brothers and I watched this movie all the time when we were kids. "Big gulps huh? Well, see ya later!" Here's a random fact about that movie- the 2nd Honeymoon hotel in Dumb and Dumber is a hotel from my town, but its not called "The 2nd Honeymoon Hotel." It's changed names a few times since we moved here, but it has never been "The 2nd Honeymoon Hotel" since we've been here. Yes sir, this movie has some of the best movie quotes. These are some of my favorites:
"Now don't you go dying on me!"....."I just got robbed from a little old lady! And I never even saw it comin!"
"No way!.... We landed on the moon!!"
"You sold our dead bird to a blind kid?"
"Harry you're alive! And you're a terrible shot!"
"What if he shot you in the face?" "What if he shot me in the face?" "That was a risk we were willing to take."
"You'll have to excuse my friend, he's a little slow. The town is back that way!!" HAHAHA! Those are just some of the great lines from Dumb and Dumber. If you haven't seen it, I highly recmmend it.

Here is a cartoon that I frequently watched as a teenager.

My friend Natalie occasionally called me Spitz because the name of the main girl in this show was Sharon Spitz and she had braces and long blonde hair just like me. I really liked watching this show. I could identify a lot with Sharon because we were both teenagers with braces. Granted, my braces didn't spaz out and get radio signals from surrounding areas, but I still identified with Sharon.

I also LOVED watching this show as a teenager.

Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are very close to my age, so I loved watching Two of a Kind because I could REALLY identify with them. There were several episodes that were very close to what I was dealing with in my life at the moment, so I watched that show every day as a young teenager. I watched every episode from the beginning to the end. Soon after they ended Two of a Kind, MK and Ashley starred on a new show called "So Little Time." It was funny, but it lacked a lot of depth and it was kind of pointless, so it got cancelled after the first season, I think.

Ok, I think that's all I've got for now.

After a year of working on this stupid test....

I FINALLY passed it and I couldn't be happier!!!! There was so much studying required to get this test passed, not to mention my AMAZING older brother who tutored me with a lot of the stuff. I honestly believe that if Mike hadn't helped me, I would not have passed it. Anyway, I just wanted to report that I did pass the test and now I get to have my normal happy personality again. :)