Sometimes, Life is Like a Machine Gun...Literally

Yay for blog slacking!! so I realize that it has been a good two weeks since I last wrote and I am deeply sorry for that. I'm sure all of you have been waiting at the edge of your seats to read about my life :P anyway...

So March is almost over already...weird. Which means that there are only like 12 days of class left : D
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! All I can say is that I am sure ready to finish up this semester and go home. Because then it will be summer and then after that... LONDON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yeah. so I'm a little excited...anyway...

I'm a little embarrassed about how late this post is. I started it like...2 weeks ago, but I have a good excuse (I promise). The best way I can explain it is in the following metaphor: life turned on me like a machine gun and just started firing away...no joke. Last week was ridiculous. I will be sure to tell you all about it, but first I must backtrack and fill you in on the weeks before that.

I went to a career night sort of thing and added another program to my list of possible grad school degrees: school psychology. I mean, how cool would that be. Getting to work with kids all day, helping them and teaching them. The schedule would be perfect and a job is practically guaranteed upon graduating. Talk about a sweet deal. That night I also discovered that one of my dear lovely friends had gotten engaged and I practically died of excitement...really. I'm just so excited for her and he certainly is one lucky fellow. It was snowing as well so Lisa and I went outside and made snow shakes. Lisa's family makes them and she promised me that we would do it sometime and so we did :)

{eating our snow shakes :)}

{snow shakes!}
[tightly packed snow, milk, and maple syrup]

That Friday night was the Hunger Banquet and Bahaar and I decided to buy tickets and then we found each other dates for the evening. The Hunger Banquet is an event that is put on every year here at BYU. It is to raise awareness for the world situation that we have on our hands. All event attendees are randomly seated and served a meal representative of high, middle, or low-income areas of the world. To create a visual representation of the global distribution of resources, most attendees (about 70%) sit on the floor and share a meager meal of rice and beans with those sitting around them. Some (about 20%) are seated in chairs and eat a modest, one-plate meal. A few attendees (only about 10%) are seated at tables and served a 3 course meal. This year they focused on "invisible children" those who cannot attend school, are used as child soldiers, are used for child labor, they are uncared-for and "invisible". At the end of the night we got to vote what charity you wanted the money raised to go to. After the Hunger Banquet we went back to Bahaar's apartment and watched Remember the Titans (which just happens to be one of the best movies like...ever). All in all, it was a good night. My date was really nice and I enjoyed talking to him. But no number asking, so I guess that's a no :P

Saturday was spent in the company of the delightful Codie. We had to speak Spanish for our class so we went to a local Peruvian restaurant for lunch then got frozen yogurt (coconut and pistachio...who knew those flavors existed?), went to her apartment and made a cookie monster cake while watching excessive amounts of Cupcake Wars on the food channel.

I made seven layer bars that Tuesday for staff meeting:

{these are seriously some of the most addictive
things I have ever baked in my entire life}

And in my study abroad class that evening we talked about how to not be an ugly american tourist. It sounds like hard work to me. Thursday I went to the dentist and was told that something expensive was wrong with my gums, so what did I do? I went home and made chocolate cupcakes with mint chocolate chip buttercream for my wonderful friend Kelli's birthday.

Friday evening was spent in the company of some fantastic friends. We made wings and watched 500 Days of Summer (ummm...sad) and got ice cream. Saturday was absolutely gorgeous, the RA recharge was really fun (it was so nice to get our of Provo and being in the mountains was amazing), and I cranked out a paper in two hours...bam. I went and talked to Terra, one of my marvelous co-workers because she was on duty and she drew me!!!:

{Terra is so amazingly talented}

The next week I didn't write in my journal, so I honestly don't really remember what exactly I did. so I'm going to skip to last Friday because it was a great day, so I actually wrote about it. I started off the day at the TRC and the Sister missionaries that I had were so great. I really got some of the answers that I needed and one of the other volunteers was kind enough to give me a ride home. As I was walking to class, I passed some guys that I know and one of them called me back and started rapping about...me. The other wasted no time in starting to beat-box. I forgot to mention that these two guys are incredibly musically gifted. It was so legit and totally made my day. I went to classes then had to go take a test. I went in and felt great, I knew what i was talking about, I knew the material, all was well, until I finished and took a look at my score. ouch. So I went home and may or may not have cried so... I took a nap then got up and ran a 5k with some really sweet girls from my floor. Then my wonderful friend, Jena, was kind enough to walk down to JDawgs with me so that I might experience that deliciousness. We stopped and got ice cream on our way home and made blueberry muffins.  Nothing that a good nap, a good run, awesome friends, a hot shower, ice cream, and baking can't fix :) That day made me so grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord. He knew exactly how I felt and He knew exactly how to make me feel better.
Here are some delicious treats that I made that week:

{cream cheese swirl brownies}

{orange white chocolate chip cookies}

{blueberry muffins}

Saturday morning was the Rex Lee Run. Jill and I had been training for it for a couple of weeks and we totally beasted it. Jill is such a champ...for real :)

{ohhh yeah :P}

{we made it!}

{so legit}

Monday was yet another amazing day. I got to see Bahaar and Shelby at the cannon center for breakfast...great surprise to start the day :) It was a momentous day...I wore sweatpants (the first pair I've ever owned) to class for the first time...ever. I know. All day I was like...oh my goodness, I'm wearing sweats...what the heck.

{me in my sweats}
[I know, I'm weird. don't judge :P]

After class Richard was kind enough to let me borrow his car and then Lisa and I went on an epic adventure gallivanting around Provo. New shoes, running into an old friend, a missionary letter, and a surprise package from the best aunt and uncle ever.

{PACKAGE!!!}
[including like the cutest jacket ever!!!}

{it goes with my new boots!!}

The rest of the week went by pretty quickly. I made these for staff meeting Tuesday night:

{salted caramel brownies}
[so dense and rich. a little goes a long way]

This is where the machine gun analogy comes in: basically the next 3 days slaughtered me. I spent Wednesday "studying" with Codie and Jared for the Spanish test that I had to take on Thursday. We really did study a bit but we usually just end up talking about lots of other random stuff, such as the gross misuse of the word literally. That was a good one.
Thursday night I spent studying for the Stats test that I had to take on Friday. After studying for stats I continued to do the pile of stuff that was due for Friday. Needless to say, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night. The next day I resembled something sort of  like a zombie, but I took my stats test that evening and did really well! I ran home, packed, then Richard picked me up and we were off to Tremonton to my cousin Jon's house for the weekend. His son was getting baptized so I got to see some aunts and uncles and cousins and my grandma. It was so nice to spend time with family and to get out of Provo for a little bit. I really love my extended family. I don't get to see them very often but I always feel right at home with them.

Here is a random song that I heard that you really should listen to:

So beautiful.

And when I say should I mean you NEED to listen to it.

Last but not least, some food for thought:

If you put first things first, you'll get both first and second things. But, if you put second things first, that's all you'll end up with. So put first things first. Make sure you know what matters most. If you don't know, find out. 

Half Way There

That's right! We are half-way through the semester! Wooo! We're gonna make it!

Life has just been flying by lately. So...all the way back to...Valentine's Day!!! For Valentine's day I got up early and made some delicious coconut blondies for all my valentines. They were so yummy and were made even better by the fact that I put them in super cute little owl goodie bags.

{one of my favorite recipes ever}
[gooey and delicious]

Devotional that day was so good! If you didn't get a chance to go, you should watch it. Elder Kearon is a great speaker and...he's British, so that makes it even better.

That night I went over to Bahaar's apartment and watched Valentine's Day. Because...what else do you do on Valentine's Day?

Thursday was THIRD THURSDAY! woooo. I made theses pumpkin snickerdoodle bars:

{complete with cinnamon cream cheese icing}

Friday night I hung out with the lovely Lisa. We went to Sammy's to try their famous pie-shakes. I got a chocolate cream oreo pie shake. Prognosis: it was realllllllllllly good. Totally worth the long walk down there. We also stopped at the Provo library so I could finally go inside. The outside is so cool that I've been dying to go inside ever since I first saw it.

{hello handsome}

We grabbed Red Riding Hood from redbox and met of with Shannon to watch it. None of us are big scary movie people so we decided that it would be less embarrassing to watch it together. It was pretty scary...I think the best part was probably the synchronized screaming...yeah... By the time we finished the movie it was way past bedtime, but none of us wanted to go to bed yet, so we watched a men's volleyball game instead...mmm. This distracted us from the scariness and we were able to sleep that night :P

Saturday morning Lisa and I went for a little run to return the movie. Sunday consisted of: Jill, an RM-filled ward :), snow (in heels), curry, a teddy bear puzzle, peanut butter cup hot chocolate, and some really awesome home teachers. for the win.

Last week was fun. Grand total I spent about 12 hours doing stats. yeah. I spent that many hours in one week doing math. who am I? but I did get a 96% on my test (with many thanks to my cousin Richard who took time out of is super busy schedule to study with me), so it was totally worth it (as painful as it may have been).

On Tuesday I made some pumpkin cupcakes with pumpkin spice cream cheese frosting. They were pretty delicious, but I didn't snag any pictures of them, so you'll jut have to take my word for it :P
On Wednesday I made these beautiful cookies for Spanish study group. We needed some serious brain food to survive that one:

{oatmeal chocolate chip}

Thursday. Thursday was a truly amazing day. I've really been struggling with some things in my life and the struggling was not going well. And then I went to RA class. Thank you Jay. Jay is the area manager here and he taught class that day. He talked about our hands and what we can do with them and then he talked about the Savior's hands and what He has done with them and what He wants to do for us. We listened to this song:

And he read this poem:

A basketball in my hands is worth about $19.
A basketball in Michael Jordan's
hands is worth about $33 million.
It depends whose hands it's in.

A baseball in my hands is worth about $6.
A baseball in Mark McGwire's hands is worth about $19
million.
It depends whose hands it's in.

A tennis racket is useless in my hands.
A tennis racket in Venue Williams'
hands is a Championship Winning.
It depends whose hands it's in.

A rod in my hands will keep away a wild animal.
A rod in Moses' hands will part the mighty sea.
It depends whose hands it's in.

A sling shot in my hands is a kid's toy.
A sling shot in David's hand is a mighty weapon.
It depends whose hands it's in.

Two fish and 5 loaves of bread in my 
hands is a co! uple of fish sandwiches.
Two fish and 5 loaves of bread in 
God's hands will feed thousands.
It depends whose hands it's in.

Nails in my hands might produce a birdhouse.
Nails in Jesus Christ's hands will
produce salvation for the entire world.
It depends whose hands it's in.

As you see now it depends whose hands it's in.
So put your concerns, your worries, your fears,
your hopes, your dreams, your families and your
relationship in God's hands because...
It depends whose hands it's in.

So, do it. Put everything in His because that's where it belongs, for "[His] yoke is easy and [His] burden is light." Let Him help you. His hand is continually stretched out to you, waiting. All you have to do is reach for Him. He loves you more than you can ever know. I promise. 

{Be Not Afraid- By Greg Olsen}

It was seriously one of the sweetest experiences of my life.

On Saturday I went on a double with Jill's cousin and Jill and her date . It was pretty fantastic. I attended my first ever BYU men's basketball game (Jill was appalled when I told her I had never been to one before :P). Then we went to Thai Mango for some delicious curry.

{it was the first BYU basketball game for all of us}
[to the great horror of  Jill :P]

{a packed Marriott center for the last home game}

{yay for leftovers}

And finished up the night by watching Captain America (which was actually pretty good).

Sunday morning Codie and I went to a Spanish barrio for church. I love going to their wards. They are so warm and friendly and welcoming. And this time I actually understood 95% of what they were saying. I even learned some stuff in Sunday School! Then I made it back for the last hour of my church. I made some wonderfully delicious brownies then headed over to Richard's for family dinner. 

{these were probably the best brownies I've ever had the pleasure of eating}

This time family dinner consisted of 2 aunts, 2 uncles, 4 cousins, and my grandma. Good times.

On Monday I made peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip bars for our Spanish class fiesta. And that's pretty much it.

{dense, peanut buttery goodness}

During the fiesta some of the other kids were talking about dating and one of them asked about my dating life and I said nada.  And then he said the sweetest thing. He told me that I was pretty and not to forget it. Pretty much made my life. Right after class I went with family to Guru's and got some of their famous sweet potato fries and then on to see my cousin Richard's choir perform Mozart's Requiem which I happen to enjoy very much. It was a wonderfully delightful performance. We then got dessert at the Cocoa Bean (cupcakes and hot chocolate...yum).

On Tuesday I went to the Pendulum Court with Bahaar for lunch and this is what we got for dessert:

{jealous much?}
[cause you should be :P]

I also had my first prep class for my study abroad and I am so excited!!! The outlined program looks great and the faculty are awesome...wooo!!!

Yesterday was leap day! So of course we watched Leap Year :)

Oh, and this is what it looks like when you ship a glass bottle of vanilla extract in a paper envelope:

so...uh...just don't do it.

anywho, that concludes today's installment. stay tuned for more updates on my oh-so-exciting life :P