6.30.2011

june : week one.

(will i forever be four weeks behind?) 

roommates last magleby's breakfast
(minus britt and suzanne)
getting new roommates has been sad but i will always miss the original
green gables gals!

 at times i think it is a good idea to fly a kite while waiting to be seated at a restaurant.
also, at times, it really isn't a good idea.

once upon a time i saw ashlie for the last time before she left again.
i just wish she would stop moving away! we shared some final
youtube videos, one of our favorite pastimes, and said goodbye. sad.

ryan and i went to the rooftop series concert with mindy gledhill and 
meaghan smith. it was really so great! and so many people! 

fun fact = ryan actually played with nik day for the very first rooftop
series concert. so it is fun to go back and see how it gets bigger and bigger
every time! (definitely took my other camera that day..not noticeable at all)

this time was really great though because it stayed light for so much longer!
ryan played back in september so it got dark really fast. 

by the time meaghan smith played we had met up with some friends on the side.
who knew this would be a nice seat? it was perfect. and free!
(and so many random reunions with people!)

and look!
this friday they will have another one so everyone come down and be my friend!

after a year and a half of not seeing this cute face i skyped with
sister tong my last companion! i don't know why i never ever skype
with anyone, i should really start utilizing it.

and three cheers for this view biking to work! everything is so green!
and lovely. and the other snow capped mountains are just as green and 
even more pretty! who knew utah could stop being brown and yellow
with just a little bit slash a lot of rain?
 (i guess everyone since we've been in a drought for years an years) 

6.29.2011

this just happened.

yes. labels.


i feel like i am the worst person in the world to label my posts!
why?
well because each post has like ten labels since
 i blog one hundred things at a time.

but work is slow and i've been contemplating it for awhile now,
so it happened. also! i went back to my first few posts and made all the baby sized photos
bigger and the white font to black so you can see what was written on the post
(for any ultimate creepers convenience out there)

reading through those labels and making them super specific was fun.
visiting my old posts was fun too.

i came to the realization that as much as i thought i hated blogging,
i have become a blogger. fancy that.  

6.28.2011

cortina my lover

so..a few months ago i wrote this post.
i never actually thought i would get that bike, i just liked the fact that it looked like my taiwan one.

(in case you forgot what it looked like
..and remember i'm on a mission in this photo so stop judging me)

after much research and serious consideration i decided that i really did like
that bike best and so i began looking where i could get one in utah.
the one store that carried bianchi bikes in utah valley only sold
road bikes. i was devastated! but then i realized in the locator thing i had 
only put in for them to find me locations within 20 miles of my house. 
so i took that off and then there popped up a location in sugar house!!
i immediately called them and they informed me they had two cortina turismo
bikes that had come in that very day but one was already sold!
i told him i would be there the very next day to see the other one and 
he promised not to sell it. 

 
so this day (the next day) i came up and took it for a test ride. 
it felt so great! but i wasn't sure if i was sold on the navy, i had really
wanted the beige one so i put $50 down on it and said i would be 
back monday to either get the bike or get my money back.

as i drove away i saw this and felt like maybe it was fate?

so after thinking about it for two days i went back with my bf emily 
(and the cutest baby ever hinckley!)
she is always with me for all my major purchases 
(like my imac last year, but that time baby hinckley was inside her body!
so i was happy he could make it this time as a real human)

and there it is! just bein mine!
(big thanks to ry guy for letting me borrow his car and having
a bike rack. don't actually know how i would have got it home without it)

to celebrate we went to costa vida
(and i had to park and position myself so i could watch it the whole
time out of pure paranoia that someone would steal it)

yay for finally buying a bike!
and yay to momma jan and papa tom for funding this bike!
graduating from college is the best!


the week i bought it it rained everyday and the weather was awful. but it stopped for an hour or two
so we went on a little date.

we biked up to the orchards to see how they would look for this shoot

and we saw deer!!

then i rode past the old yellow house to feel sad and saw our
old neighbors outside their old house! 
i blogged all about the exciting event here
they loved cortina!

that weekend we went biking with miss allison frost and her bike and got
sno cones! it was a great reunion for all of us. 

allison had to leave and i had time to kill so i biked up to the mtc to see 
how long it would take if i biked to work. it wasn't even that bad!


so i went the extra mile and went to cyd's house to visit! 
it was a really really productive afternoon. 

since then i have successfully rode to the mtc multiple times! 
it isn't very fun because it is all up hill but it makes me feel
like i'm a missionary again and that makes me happy.

she loves having all those friends! 
and being so good looking!

i love cortina. 
our other adventures will be documented in other posts,
and there are many more to come! 

 and if you ever want to meet cortina just come ova
we'll go on a bike ride. 

6.27.2011

praise to the man.

maybe i always want to write religious things on this blog?
 but i refrain because i don't want to sound preachy or be one of those people (i think you know what i'm saying).
but let's be honest..i am one of those people haha.
so if you don't feel like reading it - i'm not even offended. when it comes down to it though, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a pretty big part of my life and shame on me for not talking about it more!

today marks the 167th anniversary of the martyrdom of the prophet joseph smith.


i am so grateful for him and all that he sacrificed to help restore Christ's church to the earth. everything good in my life has come from the gospel and if he hadn't done all that he did - my life and countless others would be drastically different. today causes me to reflect on my mission and sharing with the taiwanese people the first vision. everyday i had the opportunity of helping people understand the nature of God - who He really is and who His son Jesus Christ is, what are relationship is with them, how we pray and receive answers, and how they really know each of us individually. those precious truths are known because of that first vision and because of the faith of a 14 year old boy. his faith and desire to receive answers to his questions has blessed the world. his life was an example of pure discipleship and one that we should all try to emulate. in both life and death he fulfilled his promise to give everything for the building up of the kingdom of God.

"Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it. ..He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people."
-John Taylor, Doctrine and Covenants 135:3

if you have not yet seen the new restoration movie you should watch it.
(it looks like the one shown in the jsmb but it has been changed)

..today would be a perfect day to do so.

6.21.2011

boy SEE : somehow every post has 34 pictures. sorry.

really though! 
somehow every single long post i put has about 34. 
either you guys are really lucky or
i just need to calm down and learn how make my posts shorter.

while we are deciding the answer to that let's talk about boise! 
(apparently pronounced boy-see, not boy-zee. dang our utahn accent!)
my mission and now real life friend jacquie and i were invited up to
another mission friend's house in boise for memorial day weekend.
neither one of us really had anything going on so we figured why 
the heck not! i mean what isn't there to love about idaho?!?
(honesty moment = i have always hated idaho)
the drive was gorgeous! we heard it would be really ugly but thanks
to it raining all day for weeks it wasn't!
jeff drove with us up and this is pretty much what he did the whole time.
we both felt bad he had to endure through like five "NOW this is what
i call music!" cd's and the prince of egypt soundtrack. sorry jeff!
we made a stop in twin because i wanted to have a picnic at the falls and of
course go to the classy magic mall, sit on a weird couch display in the middle of it,
and drink a ginormous strawberry julius.
since that mall forgot to have good food we settled for kfc.
nothing like a picnic in twin falls canyon!
( i think that is what this place is called? i don't actually have any idea)
soooo about to storm but so nice.
after our adventure filled ride up we went on a hike right outside of
downtown boise. it was so so pretty. half way up it started to hail!
turning back was mentioned but then we remembered that we are
yo bonfa missionaries! so instead we finished out the hike
 completely drenched and freezing. it was great.

and look at this great bench overlooking the valley!
afterwards we had the urge to ring this bell at the capitol.
since our shoes had ten pounds of mud on them we just did it barefoot.
rebels!!

this photo happened barefoot too
(we just wanted to make the most of our idaho experience)
every night we enjoyed staring at the glow in the dark stars on this fan
until they stopped glowing. fun! saturn!



my camera actually died so we don't really have pictures of sunday,
i actually took this one off facebook. this would be our friend's dad taking
us around on his "tour of boise" and us stopping at the boise state stadium.
their family is pretty into athletics and we definitely all had to put our
hands over our hearts before and after this picture was taken.

the rest of sunday was really nice! jacquie overheard a girl saying at church that
 she just got baptized so we went into missionary mode and sat with her
throughout all the meetings and loved every minute of it. after church we ate,
sang hymns around the piano, and played reverse charades.
it was a day full of mormon goodness and i felt like i was back in high school
again. that was one of my most favorite parts of murray!  the friends i
made there and the wholesome things we would do. i miss those times.

whoops. sorry it got a little too journaly there!
anyway.  

so sunday was nice.
monday we were going to go home in the morning but decided boise is
quite the drive and we wanted to make our trip worth it so instead
we stayed and fed the ducks!

(ps sorry the quality of these pictures aren't the best. we had to borrow a
camera and bad pictures are better than no pictures right?)

I don't know if you can tell but i've never been more
excited about anything

nor has jacquie
(is nor a word?)

yes. he bit my hand.

then jacquie and i learned how to ride scooters!
for some reason i always thought they were really difficult and you
had to use a clutch so i never wanted to but it was in fact easy as ever!
even on this baby track at the elementary. rebels again!

during our ride we hit up this park that said it was only for 6 - 12
year olds. little did they know that it was fine for adults and nothing was
broken. jacquie's new best friend!

benson loooooved it

and we loved it


we also loved this belle ladder at benson's house!!!


and his niece's no boys allowed cardboard play house
and his mom!
"oh my! how did these girls serve a mission and
do the naughty moves!" oh gosh. i loved her.

and benson's dad!
who loves to put creepy displays up for every holiday!

we also loved driving home and stopping at the hammett sign.
(and saying "hammett!" all weekend)

like the rest of the weekend, we wanted to make the most of our trip
so we tried to stop at anything that sounded cool on the way home.
fossils sound cool right?!

sad thing we had no idea where they were.
so jacquie just layed down so we could say we saw one.

and we did find this creepy cross of john simmons with rubber
geccos all over it so i guess that was worth the detour!
next stop was the malad gorge!
let's give three cheers for wearing the same outfit two days in a row 
because i tried to be more like a boy and only pack exactly what i
thought i would need but since we stayed and extra day that didn't really
work out. note to self: that was stupid.

hahaha

yes it was important to stop at every bird to see all the
different view points of the gorge.

good to know
groooooooooooss

next stop: the real twin falls!!
(and my favorite lady ever!)

this picture or the other twenty i took of it really don't do it justice.
definitely worth the $3 it cost to drive down there.

and then we were off for hours and hours back to good old utah.

this trip along with a trip to idaho falls (that i will blog about soon!) has made me
not hate idaho anymore! yay for that break through!

and yay for realizing that even though this weekend of fun was spent with like
12 other people, in my head it was just a nice getaway for jacquie and i and
we really just hung out with each other the whole time (like when everyone went
and played basketball monday morning and we slept in instead).
i feel kind of bad but like this story nonetheless.

if you read the captions to all this i'm way sorry.
love to love you!