Unexpected

Six months ago, if you were to suggest that my life would be as it is now, I would have laughed and said definitely not.

Little did I know what was in store for me.

Things I never would have expected 6 months ago:

- moving out of my parents house

- living with great roommates

- meeting Austin :) and completely changing my relationship situation

- finding out that our house was foreclosing, quite a shock to us as tenants

- my hard drive crashing

- trying to live on as small a budget as possible

- helping Austin plan out school, now that he's chosen to become a pilot :)

- talking about and starting to plan a wedding at the end of the summer :)

Life has been crazy and nothing like I expected. But fortunately, I don't know everything about my life and I have been led to a completely different place. And I am so grateful!

Going Bananas!

Goodness it's March already. Life has been so crazy, and my blogging time has not been keeping up!

So here's a quick update:

Feb. 20 was Austin's birthday! :) in the middle of the night, my roommate Tarina and I went and decorated his car. We were really tired and like dead quiet, but a neighbor still noticed and came out to make sure we weren't stealing anything. Austin and I spent the day at church basketball and at home with his family.

Feb. 21 was Quinton's Eagle Court of Honor! He is a pretty amazing kid. Kyle got his eagle at 14, which was impressive. Logan beat him and got his at 13 :) so Q decided he needed to top them both and successfully finished all the requirements to become an eagle scout at age 12. That's about the fastest you can go. But that is Quinton. Always filled with energy and ready for a challenge, dressed perpetually with style, of course.

Feb. 25 was a scary day. Kyle and Logan were in a bad accident on their way to school. Both are doing alright now. Kyle was in the hospital for that morning, and will have a long road of recovery, but he is safe. Logan, miraculously, was not hurt. By all counts, he should have been. Our family is so grateful for the Divine protection my brothers and the other 2 students in the car were given. We have been so blessed that the injuries sustained were not any worse.

So now that the past few crazy weekends are over, I am looking forward to a low key one. I think I'll spend it making banana bread out of the 50 bananas that are currently sitting on my counter. They were for snack at work on Wednesday, but my kiddos were in a very non-banana-friendly mood. We had tons leftover! Good thing I don't mind a lot of monkey business ;)

He's a Keeper

This Valentine's Day weekend has definitely been one to remember. Austin is such a great guy :)

Friday night we went out to dinner at RigaTony's, one of my family's favorite restaurants. It looks like the Italian restaurant in "Return to Me." They even play Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. After that, we went to an institute Valentine's dance. I love dancing, and even though it's not Austin's favorite thing, he went along with it. We had a great time!

Saturday we spent the whole day together. He made french toast for breakfast, then we spent a few hours doing homework. Sounds boring, my brothers would say, but actually I loved it. I think out loud while doing homework or writing an article (whenever possible) and we had a good time just joking around with each other. Then (and this is a testament of what a good guy Austin really is) we cleaned my house. Almost the entire house is tiled (minus our bedrooms) and it needed swept and mopped badly. So we worked on that, we cleaned bathrooms and the kitchen. And then, because he knows how much it bugs me, Austin started cleaning off our very dirty stove top. This thing has never been cleaned. It had years worth of burned on messes. Each burner had black rings around it. I have tried tackling it before but never made a noticable difference. But Austin decided we could do it! We bought some Magic Erasers and with alot of elbow grease we got it sparkling clean!

He was willing to clean my stove! I love just spending time with him, no matter what it is. And I am so grateful that he is thoughtful enough to work on a hard, not-at-all-fun, grimy project on his Saturday.

After the stove we made some lunch (well it was practically dinner) and then saw went to the movies to see Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. We both really liked it. I had read the book and told Austin about it. He is a big fan of the Narnia movies and this is reminiscent.

Sunday he came over for breakfast. I made blueberry and banana nut pancakes. Then church, and dinner to celebrate his brother's birthday.
For Valentines, Austin gave me a Willow Tree statue. I collect them. It is beautiful, and he even sanded and repainted the figure to give her blonde hair :)

A wonderful guy and a wonderful weekend spent with him! I wish I could do it a thousand times over :)

99 Red Balloons

As you can tell, my life gets a little hairy while school is in session. I'm out the door by 6 or 7 each morning for a long block of classes and internship meetings, then onto work at Kids Express and home by 7. Between homework and Austin, my evenings get pretty booked as well! :) Hence the lack of postage on my blog here.
But so much has happened since I last posted! I'll catch things up in reverse chronology...
Sunday Feb. 7 - My 21st Birthday!!!! :) Finally! I'm a bit of an old soul but I look like a teenager. I may regret it in the future, but I always look forward to turning a year older. This year was good. I spent it at my parents house with Ausin and my family, making pizza and watching the Superbowl (not exactly my entertainment of choice, but hey. What are you gonna do?)
When I came home, I found my roommates had filled my room up with dozens balloons, streamers and a pet balloon cow. It was the cutest thing ever! My roommates are so sweet.
Last night, after attempting to write a few articles due for my internship, I finally popped all of them. My floor looked like a balloon battlefield, with gory bits of latex scattered here and there. I have a pile the size of a soccer ball with balloon pieces. It took almost 40 minutes to pop them all and get the candy out of the inside!
Friday Feb. 5 - Skiing in Telluride, Colorado. One of the great ski areas in the nation. Need I say more?
Saturday Jan. 30 - Sailing with my dad, Kyle, Quinton, Janie and Austin in San Diego. This was the first time I'd been sailing and I loved it! I even got to steer :) look out...
Austin and I walked around Seaport Village (one of my favorite places) after sailing and took some cool pictures.
late for class, but they will be posted later!

Red Robin... YUM!

Tuesday night, Austin and I went to Red Robin for dinner. Before I go there, I pretty much have to skip a meal or two. They give you so much food! And it's so good.

So I was pretty hungry and so was Austin. He has been feeling a little under the weather and took a long nap yesterday after work. He woke up with a lot of energy and a big appetite!

While we were sitting at the restaurant, looking over the menu, Austin spies the "Monster Burger". He gasps and points to it and looks up at me. I just shook my head and said, No Way. But he did it. He ordered the Monster Burger! This thing is huge. It's 2 giant hamburger patties, topped with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and pickle relish. Then Austin added french fried onions and BBQ sauce (just like my dad always does!)

I kid you not this burger was like the size of my face! It was so big, he had to eat it in layers. He couldn't get his mouth around the whole thing. Boys, boys, boys... And he ate the Whole thing.

This picture is posted with the approval of Tempe Marketplace Red Robin manager. He came and chatted with us, saying we could post pictures if we would tell everyone where we got them! :)

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

The dawning of a new year always brings exciting change. A fresh start for our goals and resolutions, a new semester, a change of pace. This year is no exception.


For example, to start blogging in 2010 off right, I now can write at my own desk! It's beautiful, I love it!

Special thank you to Mom and Dad for picking out the perfect desk :) The only drawback was the the desk came in far too many pieces!
Fortunately, another change in my life helped me take care of that problem

Meet Austin Baxter. We've been dating for a few weeks now, although we met shortly after I moved to Tempe. My second Sunday in the ward, during Sunday School (which we had first hour of the block last year) I was sitting directly behing him. I bent down to grab my purse at the same moment Austin turned around to stretch his back. As fate would have it, he elbowed me square in the face :)
He immediately apologized, and I, slightly stunned, laughed it off. He came up to me again before Sacrament meeting to apologize again. He sat by me and Tarina (my roommate) and we ended up talking for a while again after the meeting. He asked me out for the following weekend!My roommates deviously left us alone for a while and went to talk to a friend, Anita. As I went back to meet them and said I'd gotten a date, Anita said, "Oh Austin is such a good guy. He bears his testimony every month. "
This sentiment has been reaffirmed by countless people. I was talking with a guy named Brian at a Munch and Mingle a couple weeks later about Austin (they serve together in the Elder's Quorum). Brian paid him a high compliment when he said, "If I were a girl, I would want to date Austin!" Fortunately for me, Brian is out of the competition.

Time will tell where we will end up, but I am definatly excited to see where this big change will lead :)

Utah Fashion Show

After much too long of an absense I am posting again! Christmas was great :) I spent several nights at my parents house before we left for our annual Utah Christmas trip. This year it was a little shorter than normal, we were there about 6 days. We skiied twice (yay!), played alot of Werewolf (it's a cousins thing ;) don't ask), and spent New Year's Eve with an entertaining White Elephant gift exchange. Overall a good week :)

Our last day in Utah, my cousin Portia invited me to go to a dance with some of her friends. It was formal dress and strictly ballroom style dancing. I was excited to go but, uh, unless you count a red turtleneck as formal, I wouldn't have met the standard. So Friday morning Portia brought over a bunch of dresses that she had. Some, and I quote, that "I wouldn't be caught dead in, but maybe you'll like it" :)

And so began our Utah Fashion Show:

Kayla looked lovely in her red ballroom-dance-friendly gown.

I on the other hand, looked like a mermaid.

And Portia, those sleeves! Oo la la!

Janie looked very chic, a vision in white satin-like material.

Miss Emery, oh my. That dress is fabulous! I mean it, it's fabulous. Don't let anyone tell you any different. (name the movie!)

As you can tell, we had a blast! We spent hours with those dresses, laughing and taking dozens of pictures. Most can be found on Janie's facebook page, but here's a few more:

Well, the formatting is weird, but you get the point :) by the way, I did find a dress to wear that night: