The end of my college life is near

Today, there are only 3 days left until I graduate college. 3. Days. Left. Of course my two other roommates that are graduating have been counting down the days until we graduate for the last two months, because it's exciting to accomplish something that we've all been working towards for the last four years. It's an exciting time!

But it's also a sad time for me. I've experienced so many emotions the last couple weeks as the realization of me graduating becomes more real everyday. I've been happy, sad, excited, frustrated, nervous, confused, and who knows what else. I really am glad to be done with school... I can't stand tests and homework has become a pain! But I'm sure sooner than later I will miss school and how easy it was compared to the real world of being a grown-up and getting a job. It's going to be scary not being in my little 99.9% Mormon-filled Rexburg bubble! But I am going to keep my head up and look at the positives in this next chapter in my life.

The main reason I'm sad to leave Rexburg is because my social life is here. I have friends that I have had so many fun times with. Who knows when I'll see them again since we come from all over the U.S. I try not to think about that too much... it really makes me sad! It will be nice to be close to my family and go home whenever I please, but Rexburg is as much of my home now as my real home. I'm comfortable here. I'm happy here.

If I have learned anything being here in Rexburg, I have learned that changes are what help us grow and become who we are meant to be. Different roommates, different apartments, different wards, and many other differences I have experienced the last four years are changes that I didn't think would matter. But they have made me a better person. I have learned to love any situation you are in and also love the people who are in that situation with you. You never know how that person and/or situation might affect you in the long run.

Now I will be going through probably the biggest change I have gone though since I graduated from high school. It's another chapter in my book. and I'm eager to start reading and see what happens. I have no idea where I'm going to work yet, or where I'm going to live, and even though that can be scary (especially for me because I'm a plan-my-week-out kind of person), it will be an exciting adventure nonetheless as long as I stay positive and look on the bright side of things.

One of my favorite quotes by President Thomas S. Monson is "Your future is as bright as your faith." I fully believe in that. As long as I have faith that good things are going to happen, I don't have a reason to worry. The Lord will guide me where He knows I need to be, and will continue to place me in different situations in order for me to grow.

Deciding to attend school at BYU-Idaho, without a doubt, is the best decision I have made in my life so far. I couldn't have chosen a better college to further my education at. No other college would have given me as much happiness, hope, or success that BYU-Idaho has been able to.

I know I came to this college for a reason, and I didn't know exactly what that reason was at first. But I definitely know now.

So bring it on world... I'm ready to step into the unknown and see what happens!

What I am up to

So BYU-Idaho's winter semester started back up yesterday, which means I have started doing homework for my online classes. They keep me occupied when I have nothing going on at home, so it's been nice! I am taking a couple of communication classes, Group Dynamics and Persuasion. I will only have a regular class, a class that's once a week, and an easy online class next semester thank goodness. I want to get a job on-campus my last semester, which now I will be able to since I'll only taking 7 credits!

I start my internship in 19 days, and I leave for Utah in a couple of weeks. I'm pretty excited! Until then, though, I will just be doing my normal home routine. At least I have some friends in town to hang out with and I can hang out with my cousin Leisha and her cute girls whenever I can! Oh and I also have my wonderful Chlarson grandparents to go see which I love doing.

I officially own Cars 2! I have been dying to get it. I love Cars for some reason, I think it's such a cute movie. I think I may like Cars 2 even more than the first Cars movie. I first saw it last spring semester, when Geoff took me because I was dying to see it! But I love Disney movies, and am going to make sure my kids watch them while growing up since that is what I watched growing up! The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Great Mouse Detective, The Rescuers Down Under... Those were the good ol' days. I love the classic Disney movies!

That is all for now!

Update time!

I am finally done with my hectic, stressful, last fall semester at BYU-Idaho! It was also my last hard semester as well. Next spring, I will only be taking 7 credits and hopefully find a part time job on-campus or somewhere in Rexburg. I'm excited for my last semester!

I also officially have an internship! Even though I didn't get either of the two church ones I wanted, I am even more excited for this one I am doing. I am working for Fluid Studio, a graphic design and advertising firm in Bountiful, Utah. The owner, John Dye, is so flexible and let me decide how many days I wanted to work and for how long I wanted to work for. I only want to do a 1 credit internship (100 hours), since it's unpaid. So I plan on working only a couple days a week, 15 hours a week, for 7 weeks. I am living near Provo, so it will take a good hour to get to Bountiful so I only want to drive there a couple time a week! This internship was my backup plan if I didn't get the church internships. I am way happy to be working for an actual firm, which is where I want to work someday, than doing intense writing jobs for the church. I wanted to write for the church to improve my writing skills, which every student majoring in Communications needs to be a good writer. But they would take a lot of commitment, working 40 hours a week, and I would only have free time on the weekends. I would still have to drive about 45 minutes one-way each day! So yeah... that would be tough. I want to enjoy my off-track! Plus I'm taking a couple of online classes, so I really am happy with doing this internship so I can have time to do some homework!

I finished all my BYU-Idaho finals last Wednesday, which was so nice because it gave me all of Thursday to pack up my stuff. Alan flew into Salt Lake on Wednesday night, then spent all of Thursday with my brother Aaron and his family. He then got on the Salt Lake shuttle Thursday evening and drove to Rexburg. We left Friday at 10 in the morning and drove all the way home. It took a little less than 10 hours. In the past, the roads have been so bad driving home that it is impossible to not slide everywhere. It is scary with all the snow and wind blowing! But we got so lucky, and the roads were completely dry the whole way home! I could have driven home myself!

It has been so nice being home. I have just been relaxing and doing random things. On Monday, it was my mom's birthday, so I made her this delicious, 3-layer coconut cake. I found the recipe here. It's Paula Deen's, so of course it's good! There's this filling that you put in between each layer, that soaks into the cake to make it very moist! Paula Deen normally has her cake sit for 3 days so it gets super moist, but my cake layers were so small compared to hers, I only let it sit for a couple hours and it turned out fine. The one thing I didn't have time to make perfect was the frosting. It should have had time to harden for a couple of hours, but I only let it sit for maybe 20 minutes, so it was way runny! But I covered the whole cake it coconut flakes and it looked alright. I'm just glad it turned out and my family really liked it!

Yesterday was my birthday! I really don't know how I feel about being 22. But I had a very fun day. My Grammie gave me some of her homemade rolls to eat for breakfast, which is the best breakfast ever! I got a birthday letter in the mail from Geoff, which means he took time out of his busy schedule to write me an extra letter! So sweet of him :) I also like how it arrived on my birthday... he has good timing! My best friend Holly and her family are in town, so they brought be balloons in my favorite colors (green and blue) and took me out to lunch! Then my mom and I went to Wenatchee and I got some cute shirts. I came home to a heart made with powdered doughnuts on the front window of my car, and my Aunt Mimi also decorated some of the doughnuts as cute snowmen! I had a great day!

Here I am, a static mess, in Holly's birthday balloons.


One of the cute, powdered doughnut snowmen!


Also, here is a video birthday message that my cousin Leisha sent me of her daughters, Emma and Nora. It pretty much made my day! Emma is perfectly on pitch! I love these cute girls so much!


I have the best family and friends, ever! Thanks to everyone who made my birthday so special, including all of you who said happy birthday to me over Facebook! It made me day all the better.

My new iPhone/ last week update

I got my new iPhone 4s today! I have waited for 6 weeks to get it. I absolutely love it. I love how clear the pictures are when you take them, how I can post things right to facebook as soon as they happen, how I can ask Siri any question, and so much more!



The case I got from a friend! I have a couple others in different colors. But the green is my favorite color.

Other than the excitement of getting my new phone, not much else has happened. This past week went by so fast, but it was a lot of fun. Oh Monday, La Jolla held an FHE activity of Iron Chef. The secret ingredient was fruit! My FHE family and I made a pineapple upside down cake. It was so delicious! But sadly we didn't win anything for our creative dessert.


Less than half of our FHE group sadly... but we still had a lot of fun!


Logan made the sweetest flower out of an orange peel! Talk about creativity!


Our final masterpiece... partially eaten by the judges already! Doug made the fruit sculpture next to the pineapple upside down cake!

This past weekend, I went and saw Breaking Dawn with my roommate Taylor. It was actually pretty good! On Saturday I had a ward Thanksgiving dinner that was very delicious. Taylor is one of the relief society president and took charge of the dinner and splitting food cooking assignments between everyone in the ward. Talk about stressful! My roommates and I ended up cooking a turkey, a fruit salad, and 72 rolls! The turkey turned out to be so moist and delicious!


All the frozen food before it was taken to apartments to be cooked.... 4 turkeys, 2 hams, 18 pies, 2 cheesecakes, 12 cans of sweet potatoes, a huge box of normal potatoes, 300 rolls, 6 large cans of green beans to make green bean casserole... and a bunch of ingredients to make everything with!


Our kitchen was a war zone splitting up all the food and making food assignments! This picture doesn't serve it justice!


Some of the food cooked and ready to take to the ward dinner!

Later Saturday evening, I went to Extravadance with my friend Lindsey. It was amazing! I just want to become a dancer once I go to Extravadance!

I am done with school until next Monday! I am excited for Thanksgiving break and to see my wonderful Chlarson family. I plan on taking lots of pictures with my iPhone and playing with my cute nephew Asher a lot!

Half way through fall semester

I can't believe my last fall semester here at BYU-Idaho is half way over! Time really has flown. I should be sleeping right now, but I felt like I needed to blog about something and I don't know what... maybe it will come to me as I'm typing? I guess we'll see!

This weekend, I had a phone interview with Deseret News. I'm guessing I didn't get my other internship that I wanted since they never called me back. But I guess I wasn't meant to intern there right now! Anyways, the phone interview went pretty well. I felt it was rushed but that's ok. The editor on the phone that interviewed me praised me instead of criticized me like the guy editor did in my last interview. So I was glad and it made me feel good about myself. I will find out in a couple weeks if I get to intern there.

I have been feeling a little sick this weekend. I get the chills off and on and my head keeps throbbing off and on as well. Not fun! But I slept most of the day today because I have been so tired too, and that has helped me a lot. I am feeling much better now!

I was so out of it this morning, that this is how I made my bed:


I put my sheets over my comforter and didn't even realize it! I make my bed everyday... you would think I would notice not making my bed like I normally do. Oh well. It made me laugh once I realized how not-myself I was this morning! I am the ward chorister, and I couldn't even conduct the music properly during the hymns in sacrament. But I went home once sacrament ended, and slept, like I already mentioned.

Have I said how much I miss Geoff lately? If I haven't said it, I'm think about it all the time! I felt so spoiled this week, because on Monday I got an email AND a letter from him, then I got another letter on Friday. Two letters in one week! I love hearing how he is doing and seeing him change and be so spiritual. He seriously is going to be an awesome missionary. He says he can speak Portuguese without a problem now and is ready to leave the MTC. I don't blame him! I'm excited for tomorrow because he said he would email me back-and-forth for a little bit. Like MSN Messenger chatting! Even though it will only be for like 15 minutes, I'm still so excited!

Well, I really should go to bed now. I hope the quick update on my life wasn't too boring! I promise the next blog post I post will be worthwhile!

Oh.. one last thing! I dyed my roommate's hair! I have never dyed someone's hair before, so I was way scared that I would ruin her hair! Luckily I didn't. In fact, I think I did a pretty good job if I say so myself!

Another weekend down.

So I haven't blogged in a week, and I figured that needed to change. I had such a fun weekend! Yesterday,I went with my friend Danielle and some of her awesome roommates to Red Robins then Dr. Slaughters House of Terror. I went last fall, but it was way scarier this semester. It's rated the #1 haunted house in Idaho, and it's huge and takes a good 45 minutes to get through. That is a lot of scare time if you ask me! I like the beginning where there are dancers to entertain you. They are such a talented dance team. But it was fun. I got a huge bruise/welt on my left thigh from running from Dr. Slaughter chasing me with a chainsaw at the end! I ran into a corner of a wall. It is killing me!

Today I had a fun day hanging out with Holly and Bentlee. Brad was gone buying a new truck, which when he came home with it, it was so sweet! It is very big and loaded with a bunch of stuff. But while Brad was out buying his new toy, Holly and I went out to lunch, made a Wal-Mart run, and then hung out at her apartment. I can't get over how cute Bentlee is! Holly and Brad each got the new iPhone 4S, and it made me want one of my own even more. The Siri feature is the coolest thing ever! You can just talk to it and it knows everything you say without a problem. I may be going to Holly and Brad's more often just to play with Holly's phone ;)

I took some pictures with Holly and Bentlee since I haven't taken any with Bentlee ever and I haven't taken any with Holly since last fall semester!






How can you resist this cute baby!

The start of my last fall semester at BYU-Idaho

I have been back in Rexburg for a week now, and so far everything is going great! I have seen most of my friends that I haven't seen in a while. It has been good catching up with them. My roommates are all so great and we have already had a lot of fun getting to know each other.

My classes have all been great as well. My hardest class will definitely be my Web Design class. It's the second half and I took the first half last fall. This class will be more complex and a lot more work. I'm also taking Preparing for an Eternal Marriage, which will be probably my favorite class. The teacher is awesome and the subjects we are going to talk about are ones that I would choose to talk about myself. I'm sure I will learn a lot from that class. my other classes are Photojournalism, Intro. to Computer Art (where I learn how to use my Adobe Suite Programs more!) Conflict Management and Negotiation, and I-Comm (my PR agency).

I'm super excited for my last fall semester!!!!!!

The Hunger Games, and catch up on life.

So I finally got the first book of The Hunger Games Trilogy, and I loved it! It took me a few days to read but I am very sad it left me on a cliffhanger because I had to get the second book! Normally I don't read for pleasure at all while I'm at school because I know I would procrastinate homework and just read. But I will try to balance my reading with my school work as best as I can :)

Well, I arrived back to Rexburg yesterday. Such a bittersweet feelings. I have missed my friends here, so I'm glad I will be able to hang out with them again. But I am not ready at all for school to start and do homework all the time. Ugh... once it's your 7th semester, you just want to be DONE! Just two more semesters to go and I will graduate!

My roommates are all moved in and so far they seem really nice. I've been getting to know them slowly, but my room roommate, Taylor, I can already tell is going to be such a funny roommate! I have to share this story... I thought it was so funny! We were talking in our room last night, getting ready for bed and doing other random stuff. We decided we were both tired and so Taylor went to go shut the blinds by her bed, but they were stuck! No wonder they were up and open. I tried to fix it but the string must be twisted together at the top. So we had to keep the window open. Even though we have a huge bush that blocks our window so no one can peek in, Taylor was like "How am I going to sleep!" and kept complaining. I can't stand a window being open either, and Taylor and I both need the room to be completely dark when we sleep. But I asked Taylor "Why won't you be able to sleep?" And the most unexpected thing came out of her mouth. She said, "Because the racoons are going to pop up in the window and scare me!" Oh my gosh I started laughing so hard! Apparently she has had some bad experiences with raccoons in the past, but that was just so random! I assured her she would be fine and no raccoons would watch her while she was sleeping.

This month I need to start looking and applying for internships so I can have one in January. It is hard work to write cover letters and find an internship that matches you the best. So far I have applied for a couple, and have a couple more I might apply for, but I'm going to wait until the semester starts and the internship department can help me out. Their website hasn't been updated for a while so I have to wait for them to update it.

School starts in 3 days. 3 DAYS. Too soon! But I hope I have good classes that I enjoy!

It's been a year!

I have officially been a consistent blogger for a year now! My goal was to blog once every few days... I have 94 posts counting this one, which is almost two a week! I'm very proud of myself for making a goal like this one and sticking to it. I love blogging. It's great going back and looking at the fun things that I have done. I hope to continue blogging for years to come! It will be great to see what I am doing in another year.

I started my weight watchers online diet a little over two weeks ago, and I have lost 8 pounds! I know I would have lost some more but I started to slack at the end of last week and didn't count my point like I should have. I promised myself this week to eat better and go power walking every morning. And so far I have kept that promise!

I will be home for a few more weeks until I head back to school. I do regret not blogging so much last semester, but I was just SO busy and had some pretty tough classes. But all my hard work paid off because I got 5 A's and 1 B+.

As a a communications major, I have recently learned that grades don't matter as much in the long run. I have even been advised to not put my GPA on my resume because potential employers don't care about it. So why do I work as hard as I do in school? Getting good grades and doing well on tests and assignments is how I prove to myself that I am smart and can accomplish anything I set my mind to. And it's not like I don't have any fun while I'm at school. I get my homework done when it needs to get done and then have fun. I have a few friends at school that have told me I work too hard. I probably do, but I am happy when the end of the semester comes and I get the grades I deserve. I love being a hard worker and being a student that teachers are impressed with.

I'm a senior now, which means I'm going to have to work harder than ever before. I am excited for the classes I am taking next semester. I will be doing an internship on my off-track from January-April, and also be taking an online art class that is only offered online. My last semester next spring, I will only have to take 7 credits, and I am so pumped when that semester comes! 3 of those credits are for a baking class I plan on taking for fun. Would you believe that I have not taken any fun classes? They have all been for my major or minor. My adviser made me promise her that I would take a couple of fun classes before I graduated. I thought it was funny but I agreed with her that I deserved to take a couple of fun classes after working hard for 3 years straight! This semester, my "fun class" is going to be Preparing for an Eternal Marriage. Although I don't need anymore religion classes, I love them so I really wanted to take Preparing for an Eternal Marriage. No I'm not engaged or planning on getting engaged in a while, but it's never too late to start preparing for the future!

Sorry about all the randomness in this post, but those are just some things on my mind right now. I'm going to keep enjoying my summer break and have fun with my wonderful family and friends, and try not to miss my social life at college too much!

Memorial Day Weekend

Last Thursday, I was able to go with Geoff, Damon, and some friends back home to Ephrata for the weekend! We had a lot of fun boating, having a bonfire at Geoff's, going to the movie theater and watching Thor while eating free food, eating Sunday dinner with the missionaries, going to Damon's and playing with the kids, going to Geoff's and playing ping-pong and being entertained by the kids, and much much more!

Eating at Time out


Jess and I


Geoff and I


This midterms week has been killing me. The lack of sleep better be worth doing well on my stupid tests and projects! I can't believe the semester is already half way over! Pretty crazy.

Holly is going to have her baby any day! I'm so excited for her and Brad. They are going to be amazing parents :)

Catch up time!

I think this is the longest I've gone not blogging ever since I started this blog! It's been almost 3 weeks! But I have been crazy busy, and trying my hardest to not stress out... being a Junior in college is no fun. And I've been tired all the time lately which is not normal for me.

Nothing too exciting has happened for me in the last 3 weeks sadly. However, yesterday I went and saw the 4th Pirates of the Caribbean and it was so good! I didn't know how much I would like it without Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan. But Jack Sparrow is the man! I think everyone needs to go see it soon :)

I have been in desperate need of new jeans. So today I went to my favorite store, Maurices, in Idaho Falls because the Maurices here in Rexburg is pretty small and usually is out of all my sizes. I usually start drooling over everything before I walk in the entrance of that store, but when I walked in there today, there were more cute things than normal and I just wanted to buy it all! But I stayed focused and tried on like eight pairs of jeans and ended up buying two that I really like! But, of course, I can't go to Maurices ever without buying something else fun. Normally it's a top, but instead, I bought the cutest, long, hawaiian-looking dress that is totally me. And a pair of sandals to go with it! I saved 30%, so I saved a bunch of money which made my purchase that already happy even happier!

Well, I have a busy week coming up and hopefully it goes by fast. It's memorial weekend next weekend, and I have some plans that I will blog about once they happen!

Silly Spring

Right now, the sun is outside my living room window shining in. It is wonderful. But alas, there's also a little bit of snow coming down at the same time. I just want it to be sunny weather all the time! This weekend and last, the weather was perfect and sunny and I was outside most of the time playing in it. But during the week last week, on Thursday night it snowed and there were a good couple of inches on the ground. Snow makes me sad... especially when it is now May and it should be sunny all the time!

I am starting to get use to my normal school routine again. All my classes are in the Spori building and it use to be only a 5 minute walk from Carriage House. Now it is a 15 minute walk. I don't mind it though. I love my new apartment so much and the change has been good for me!

I haven't talked about my classes yet, so I will take this opportunity to do so.

Class #1- Organizational Effectiveness: This class is for my Business/ Web Design minor. And it's online. It's only offered online or else I would have taken it on campus. But so far it's been a pretty simple class. Every week, there are a couple discussion boards where I answer some questions then comment on the other answers from students in my group. There's a weekly quiz on the chapter, and it's open book so they are not hard. I also do a couple of other things but this class is very interesting and I am learning a lot even though it is online.

Class #2- Public Relation Writing and Production: Although this is not my hardest class, it is probably the class I do the most work for. A lot of writing and PR related stuff. So I spend at least an hour everyday doing homework or studying. But it's alright because I love Pubic Relation so much. My teacher is so passionate about PR which makes it all the better.

Class #3- Media Research Methods: I'm not sure what I think of this class. Because I don't really care about research. I know it is important, but lets face it. Research is boring! I put the least amount of effort into this class. Hopefully I can somehow find a way to get something out of this class.

Class #4- Creating Online Media: I love this class because it is my web design class for the semester! I'm learning pretty much the same stuff as last semester, except I'm using different programs which is neat. For once I feel smart because I know a lot already!

Class #5- Interpersonal Theory and Practice: This class is so neat. I get to learn about interpersonal communications and I find it fascinating and never boring. My teacher is one of the funniest teachers I have ever had! This is definitely my favorite class this semester.

Class #6- Career Workshop: I only have this class once a week. I work on my resume, cover letter, and all that good stuff. I really am dying to buy the adobe creative suite programs because I can work on getting my resume and cover letters to look good. And it would also help me a lot in my web design class. But... I hate spending my own money!

So those are my classes this semester.

I had a fun weekend with my roommates and friends! Friday I went with some of my friends from my old ward and ate at Craigos, like we end up doing often together. Then we had a fun game/ hang out night at one of their apartments. It was weird that my old ward has changed so much and a lot of my friends moved out just like I did. But I still have a few there and it was great to see them.

Saturday I did some homework, cleaned, and played frisbee at the park with a couple of my roommates. Geoff decided to come later on because he had nothing to do. I loved playing frisbee in the sun! That night I went with my roommates and saw The King's Speech at the cheap. It was pretty good!



I love my lovely roommate Brighton!




But that is my blog update for now. Happy May Day! Why does time fly by so fast?

Fresh start

Today is the first day of the spring semester. I don't feel ready at all... but hey who ever does? I'm excited for my classes this semester, as they all are ones that interest me. All of them are for my major and I LOVE being a communications major! I decided to set some goals for myself besides the normal studying, school-related ones. The ones I definitely want to accomplish are:

-Attend devotional every Tuesday, no matter how stressed I am with homework.
-Work out at the gym at least 3 times a week (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, to be exact). It is so hard for me to work out when studying and homework are on my mind... or sleep! But I know I will be a happier person if I can get myself to the gym.
-Eat healthier and in smaller proportions.
-Serve others more often.

Those are a few... I'm sitting waiting for my first class to start, Creating Online Media. I am the most excited for this class because I loved my Web Design class last semester, and this class will be very similar to it!

So much to say in so little time

My life has just flipped upside down in the past few days! I'm back in Rexburg and I'm already really looking forward to this semester. But lets rewind back to last Wednesday.

Wednesday: I left my Florida apartment at 4 in the morning, caught the shuttle, got to the airport around 5, then my plane left at 6:55. I was so tired by the time I got on the plane, and luckily I was the only one in my row on the plane so I could lay across the 3 seats. I flew to Phoenix, and that took around 5 hours. I stayed on the same plane and few another 3 hours to Seattle. I got home around 4, played with my cat I had missed so much, drank water from the tap (since the water in Florida tastes like sulfur!) and drive my car! Awesome day!

Thursday: I cleaned and organized some of my stuff and did a little laundry. Then I went to lunch at the new Tequilas with my friend Britney and gave her her mickey ears I bought her. She was so excited. I then went and saw my Grandpa Lewis that I haven't seen in 10 years... pretty long time if you ask me. He happened to be only a few miles away, and I knew it would be the perfect opportunity to go visit. It was awesome seeing him and catching up on life. After visiting my grandpa I went over and visited my Chlarson Grandparents. I missed them so much! My grammie even made me rolls to take to school with me! I am currently eating them for breakfast :) Later that day my Grandma Key spent the night, since she was going to drive down with us to Rexburg in the morning to see Aaron and his family. We had a yummy family dinner of potato soup, rolls, and apple dumplings! Best dinner I have had in 3 months! I packed up my car with all my stuff, then finally got to relax by watching Tangled with my family. I have never seen it... and I loved it!

Friday: Long 10 hour drive to Rexburg. We started at 4 in the morning, and made it around 3:30 Idaho time. We went and put all my stuff in my apartment to clear out my car. We ate dinner with Aaron, Cassandra, and Asher. Asher is so big it's crazy. And he can walk a few steps... that is insane for a 7 month old.

Saturday: Went grocery shopping and got the necessities I needed for my apartment. Then started unpacking. My friend Cory came by my apartment to say hello. It was the first time any of us had seen him since he left for his mission. He just got back a couple weeks ago. But it was really good to see him. My brother and him were very happy to be reunited. Cory came with me to Idaho Falls and ate dinner with my family later that night. It was a fun time! I saw a few of my other friends later that night. My roommate Brighton got to the apartment at midnight, so we stayed up talking for a good couple hours. I am so excited to be rooming with her!

And now we are at today... I am so anxious to go to church since I haven't been to normal church in 3 months! Tonight two of my roommates from last semester, Vanessa and Mary Beth, are coming over and we are making dinner and playing games with some friends. Vanessa is staying the night and that will be a lot of fun!

I am so excited to see what this semester will bring... new adventures, new friends, new memories. I love my brand new apartment! It has all the amenities I could want. How many people can say they moved into a new apartment this semester? Not many!

Me and Asher at Texas Roadhouse!

Another great semester down...

I am officially done with my 5th semester at BYU-Idaho! I had 4 finals yesterday which was pretty crazy, but I did amazingly well on all of them so I was grateful. It was great getting done with school on a Wednesday, and having 2 days to pack and clean and not rush! I'm pretty much packed, and I will be spending tomorrow getting my white glove cleaning done.

Tomorrow is also the dedication of the new BYU-Idaho center. I'm super excited because Eyring and Bednar will be there, to speak. But being able to see the inside finally will be great! It is such a big building!

I head for home Saturday morning, but my parents are picking me up tomorrow evening where we will go stay in a hotel in Idaho Falls and visit with my brother, sister-in-law and my cute nephew Asher! He turns 5 months on my birthday, which is in 4 days. Pretty crazy how time flies!

I will miss my amazing friends, my awesome ward, and especially my wonderful roommates. We all got along so well and have had some great times! We took a photoshoot this morning since we don't have any decent pictures yet, so here were just a few of my favorites:

Official "Best Day Ever"

All today, I felt and probably looked like this little girl:

It all started when I decided to call Disney. For those of you that don't know, I applied to work at Disneyworld this winter to do an internship instead of staying at home being bored all day like last winter. Well a couple weeks ago I got my acceptance letter to work as a Vacations Planner! I was sooooo excited... until I found out they assigned me to the wrong season to work April-July instead of January-April. So called everyday last week to try and get my season switched with no luck. Then on Friday, the lady I talked to said it was very unlikely that I would be able to change seasons, as there were many other students trying to do the same thing. Even if my season did get switched, she said I wouldn't be able to be a vacations planner since those roles have been taken for a couple months now. I would have to work in food services. They had been trying to switch me and others all week, but I was getting so frustrated with them! I just wanted them to give me a yes or no answer! So yeah... I was pretty bummed that I most likely wouldn't be able to go to Disney.

But today my luck changed. When I called, the lady I talked to (who was way nicer than the one I talked to on Friday) told me she would for sure get my situation figured out and call me back with a final answer. So I went to class and she called me back a couple hours later which I wasn't expecting at all. And she said she was able to not only switch my season, but I am able to keep my same role as a vacations planner! I was so thrilled!

I went to another class, then decided to take my Teachings of the Living Prophets test in between my last two classes. And guess what? I aced it! I have never aced a test in the testing center. I don't count the really easy ones I have had because I've aced most of those. But acing that test made me even happier than I already was!

And it doesn't stop there! I desperately needed help with my website because for some reason it wasn't working out too well. So I asked my home teacher, who is a computer genius, for help. We sat and talked for a little bit, then I was just messing around on my site when I realized I had missed a part of the code to get my site to work. So I put it in and Bam! My site worked! I didn't even need help and that made me so happy!

I also had a ward Thanksgiving dinner for fhe tonight, and that was quite entertaining. I love my ward and fhe family! Now for the rest of the night I'm going to study for a test that I have tomorrow, chill with the roommates and my b.f.f.f.e. Geoffrey, and just soak in as much happiness as possible!

Those are only some of the many great things that happened to me today. I am declaring this day, November 15th, "Best Day Ever" day. Well, at least for me. I am going to make sure next year, on this day, is just as good as it was today. I haven't been this happy and stress-free in so long, even though I still have a ton to do this week before I go home for Thanksgiving break, which is in 4 days by the way! I miss my family, attempting to snuggle with the cat, but not really my bed because my bed here at school is amazingly comfortable. But I miss Ephrata so I can't wait to be back there this Friday!

From Rexburg to Iceberg

I jinxed the weather by posting about how lovely it was outside yesterday! So the picture I took of outside below went from that (warm, sunny, amazing) to this today:


cold, slushy and not amazing! But I must admit, I like snow because then it's not freezing outside. I just don't like getting soaked on my way to class! Goodbye sunny weather, you were great while you lasted!

Warm soup and warm weather. What more do I need?

Today for dinner, I am making my favorite potato soup!

Here is is sitting in all of its glory :) It will sit in the crock pot for 7 hours and become the most delicious soup ever! I hope my roommates and friends coming over will agree!

Here is the recipe in case you want to try it for yourself:
8 Cups diced peeled potatoes
3 Tablespoons dehydrated onions
5 1/2 Cups water
8 chicken bullion cubes
1 Can cream of chicken soup
1 package of cream cheese cubed
1/4 Teaspoon pepper
1/2 Cup bacon bits
1/2 Cup shredded cheese
Chives

Directions:
In a slow cooker, combine first 5 ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or high for 4-5 hours (potatoes should be tender). Add cream cheese, stir until blended. Garnish with bacon, cheese and chives if desired. Makes 3 quarts.


Normally, Rexburg becomes an iceberg after only being at school for 3 weeks, and by the middle of October snow and ice are a common sight. Well, here is what it looked like outside of my bedroom window this morning:

Sunny weather, and around 65 degrees will be the high. Definitely not normal for Rexburg, which by now should be in the negatives during the night and mornings then only get into the single digits for the rest of the day! I am SO grateful for this uncommon occurrence. I am such a wimp when it comes to the cold winters, especially Rexburg winters where there's a wind chill that kills you when you're walking up the hill to school! I am going to enjoy my warm soup in the warm weather while it lasts!

Oh... and my ward, for the 5th semester in a row, is the Ultimate Frisbee Champs! I like to say I'm their good luck charm, since they have been the champions every Fall and Spring semester since I've been at school!

Best. Halloween. Ever!

So Halloween is probably the funnest holiday to celebrate at college. Especially when it's on a Sunday, and you go to an LDS college that celebrates it on the Friday and Saturday before! I think this was the funnest Halloween out of the three I have been at college for. I'm not the type to normally dress up for Halloween, but my roommates came up with the best idea ever to dress up as stepford wives (and no... not the slutty kind like every other girl dresses up like). I gave in and went with the flow, and boy did we all looked so good! We went to a really fun dance Friday night at the airport museum that played really good music and so many people were there. There were the best costumes, but I must say being in a group of all stepford wives got a lot of stares and glares. I heard a couple people say, "Wow, that is a really legit idea!" and "I wish we would have thought of something like that!" This may be because one of my roommates took the role as the "cleaning wife" and dragged our huge, broken vacuum around everywhere which got a lot of laughs. And two of my other roommates made fudge and cookies and handed them out to people. How can you not be jealous of us! I had a cold, but even though I coughed half the night and was a little out of it at times, I didn't let that get into the way of my Halloween fun!

My Stepford Wives Costume!

The group! MB, our friend Danielle, Me, Vanessa, Jess and our friend Ashley

The Creeper... he came to our apartment the night before and scared us all to death. We were literally on our couch squeezing eachother while he came at us with his bloody sword in the dark! We tried for like half an hour that night to figure out who he was, but he wouldn't tell is. We finally found out his identity on Saturday! Ross! He use to be in our ward.

Dancing around the vacuum.

Jacob Black! What a smarty to attract all the ladies!

Our friend Laura... I loved her glow-stick costume!


Saturday and Sunday I was way out of it from being sick, so I ended up watching scary movies most of the time with friends. And sleeping of course! All in all it was one of the funnest weekends I have had in a long time!

Miterm Relief

I am so glad it is the weekend... last week was the busiest week of the semester for me so far. Tuesday- Thursday I was on campus from 9 in the morning to around 6 at night with hardly no breaks. It was ridiculous! I only have one midterm left that I have on Monday, I'm going to study most of the day for it. I also have 2 papers to start writing and 2 presentations to start preparing. The stress never ends! But hopefully I get a lot of it done this weekend so I don't have to worry as much.

Last night was so much fun! Here are some of the random things I did:
-Massage train with my roommates (one of my favorite things of course!)
-Random posing game with the roommates...I don't know how to describe it, it was just silly!
-Interpretive dancing with the roommates! We are really odd I know.
-Guitars Unplugged with a bunch of friends. I loved all the glow sticks!
-Dance party at Southgate... a bunch of my ward went since it was being held by a guy in my ward. But the new Southgate lounge is amazing and I wish I lived there!
-Sammy's with my FHE sisters and some of my guy friends at 12:30... I had a delicious Coconut Cream Pie Shake that was soooooo delicious!
-I was late coming home, of course since I went to Sammy's. But I got back around 1:30 and watched A Walk to Remember with my roommates!

Nights like these make my life worth living! I love hanging out with all my friends and laughing over the silliest things. It is definitely the best stress-reliever after a difficult week of school :)