tender mercies

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I love realizing everything I should be grateful for and that includes the little stuff. So here are some of the little things that make my life that much greater.

1. My cute little niece that calls me "Mannies" and always wants to play with me.
2. The movies with the family. I always enjoy laughing aloud and critiquing any film with my family. And yes, that includes Breaking Dawn..
3. Black Friday. Where I can buy an electric blanket, pillow, boots, clothes, a crockpot, and dvd's all under 100 bucks.
4. Watching Jurassic Park with my dinosaur pillow pet.
5. Music. Listening, playing, singing, etc. Especially for friends with musical talent. Boy do I envy them.
6. Driving. I don't know why, but I love it.
7. My dad's patience. For times when I'm not the brightest and lock the keys in the trunk of his car.
8. Pinterest. For teaching me how to be a better girl.
9. Stuffing. Single most greatest food at Thanksgiving, or any time for that matter.
10. Cooking. I'm really enjoying cooking for once in my life. 
11. The temple. It's beautiful and always gives me warm fuzzies just looking at it.
12. Random texts from people I haven't heard from in awhile.
13. Sunsets.
14. Tandem bike rides.
15. A puppy or dog to cuddle with.
16. Being able to vent with a good friend of yours at any time, any place.
17. The heater vent at my apartment. I love when I get to it first and can lay down in front of it.
18. Shopping with the sisters. They are always there for me.
19. 7-11 Hot Chocolate. Rough day? Let's go to 7-11. Wanna go somewhere? 7-11. Late night cravings? Answer, 7-11 hot chocolate. Fill your cup up two-thirds of the way with hot chocolate and mix with steamed milk to help blend it in. Add one irish creme, one hazelnut (add more for desired taste), and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. Add baby marshmallows for "those" kind of nights. Best thing ever.
20. Laughing. Modern Family always makes me laugh, my family can help me crack a smile any time, my friends are hilarious, crazy people at black friday shopping make me giggle, well, in reality, I laugh at just about anything.

This is just to mention a few great tender mercies in my life. What are you grateful for?

QUICK CATCH UP

Road a tandem bike on 11/11/11.

Camped out for the USU vs. BYU basketball game. Greatest highlight of the semester!

Was a puppy for Halloween.

Ran through a corn field in the middle of the night.

Went to a spooky bridge.

Became addicted to pinterest.

Laughed really hard at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm3JodBR-vs

and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Lmkm5EF5E

Thinking about the study abroad program, next summer, Europe.

That is all.

They will have cake...

My roommates are so sweet I love them all. They threw me another birthday party and it was awesome. (Even though sadly it was after the devastating loss to BYU)

They were so excited to make BTS cake (ask your parents) and party it up. Claire is especially awesome for smuggling in this fancy candle from China. I was so surprised, you have no idea. Well, just watch the video below and you can get an idea.

Thank you friends/roomies for an awesome birth celebration!

So so so so so cute girls. Where's KarLee??

There's KarLee! Love you guys!!!

birdsday

So I turned 21.

That means I'm an adult.

My family rocks and they took me hot air ballooning.

It was an awesome birthday this year!

That one Labor Day

I love life.

Being back in Logan has been phenomenal.

What was extremely fun was Labor Day in Logan.

Corey had a fantastic idea of hiking up to Tony's Grove from Green Canyon. What did we know about this hike? It's "supposedly" a 15 mile hike, in the wilderness, and you get a sense of feeling lost. We were sold. So we packed a bunch of food, got the cars situated, and we were on our way. Where ever that was going to take us. This hike was the most gorgeous and fun thing I had ever done in Cache Valley. Parts of it were tricky and steep, it rained a bit, but besides that the weather was perfect and we had an amazing group. I was just so happy to be there.

Now, the feeling of being lost? We most definitely felt that. The trail would fizzle out or turn off into different points. But for the most part we did pretty good, from what we could tell. But at the end we weren't sure at all. It was getting dark, and Corey and I were getting worried because we thought we would have to camp over night. We get to a point where basically we could go left or right. One trail looking well traveled and the other one, not as much. We almost took the well traveled one, but we decided to go ask the guy we had seen a little bit ago camping. We were a little scared of him because we had said hello and he just looked at us... So some of us went back to ask him where we were. Our friend Stevie went to talk to him and all I could hear was "Speak no english". My heart sunk. But then Stevie whips out his amazing espanol skills. This man's name was Pablo and he was from Peru. As Stevie was talking to the man, we were intently listening. Stevie would laugh and we didn't know if it was a good thing or not. At the end, we shake hands with Pablo and say our sayonara's. We find out that Pablo is up there ranching 1,000 sheep. This man was amazing! Oh and the fact that we were only 20-30 minutes away from Tony's Grove. But if we had taken the well traveled road, it would have taken us into even more back country so thanks to good ol' Pablo, we found our way to our destination.

I felt so accomplished... and tired/starving. It was such a fantastic Labor Day. One of the greatest.

the Group

 

This map was provided by a couple of cowboys we happened to pass by. They were  mozying by on their horses and we thought we would ask them where to go. Luckily they let us take a picture of their map. When we told them we were headed to Tony's Grove, one laughed really hard while the other said that we were rather ambitious.
The green line represents what we hiked. Rough estimate of how it looked.

Let it begin....

Happy Shark Week Ya'll!

Derby Day

Demolition Derby.

I am a big fan.

Saturday, some friends and I went out to the Cache Valley Demolition Derby. What a hoot! Such an amazing day, I lost my voice completely, usually a big indicator on the level of fun-ness I'm having. haha 

It rained on us dedicated derby fans, but blue skies broke out  just in time for it to start!

Still havin a blast even though we all got drenched. Excluding Whitney and Marissa.

How many dogs can you find on the roof? We found 7!

Memorable Moments:

Claire: The Chinese only know of three famous white people: Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, and President Obama...

Me: Obviously they don't know Obama that well.

Luke: I think something just fell into your.... bosom?

Me: It happens.


Claire: Oh my Lady Gaga!

Marissa: Did we just talk about Harry Potter for an hour?

Drunk Guy: Whaaaat?? Yer never see dogs ona roof befer?! Dis one's Lightnin', *Indistinct drunk chatter*.

Drunk Guy: As he almost slips off his own roof, he makes sure to protect his beer.

Luke: Is this hot and moistness bothering you?

Me: The word moist bothers me more.

Would You Like a Cookie-Cookie??

I've never had a fortune cookie know me so well... Thank you fortune for reminding me why I want this summer to go by fast! haha The family had a good laugh when I showed them my fortune. To catch ya'll up, Corey is in Thailand for the summer, and I won't get to see him for pretty much 3 months. So in other words, I need to be distracted this summer.

In other news, it snowed in Utah. Happy Memorial Day weekend. P.S./ Where is Summer?

Bon Iver kinda day, or week

Calgary. New song of Bon Iver. I'm loving it and can't wait for the new album to come out.

Have a listen!

Shake Your Groove Thing

Life in the past couple of weeks have been wonderful. Finals were a bummer especially when Corey was done by Monday and I was stuck in the library studying my brains out and watching everyone enjoy the very rare sunny days Logan Utah had to offer. But I pulled through and passed all my classes. Eat it USU!! It really feels good to be done with another semester of school and to be done with my gen eds. Now I'm back in my hometown Sandy to enjoy a good ol' Utah summer. It does feel weird not being back in Logan at V2 in Old Farm. I miss all my roommates very much. But we partied as much as we could the last few weeks. Even until the last few moments until cleaning checks and I started to drive out of the parking lot. It was very sad to say goodbye. I've loved being back in Sandy though. I'm enjoying my free time of unemployment for as long as I can. Corey and I have spent alot of time together. We've been trying to hang out as much as we can before he leaves for Thailand for the summer. I'm really bummed out, but hopefully it'll go by fast. I need to keep myself very distracted. I'm getting really antsy and want to go on a road trip, or vacation of some sorts. I especially want to find the sun. I think I'm with everyone else in the state of Utah thinking it's not cool that it's snowing and it's mid-May. So uncool Utah. Let me know if you want to join me for a road trip! haha Also, Friday I'm going in for a haircut. I'm sure none of you care. But I'm going for my short haircut again. What do you think? Good Idea or Bad Idea? Well, that's me, here in the now.

I thought I'd share one of my adventures in the past weeks. Corey and I took a trip out to Antelope Island. I've lived in Utah my whole life, and never have I ever really ventured out there. It just seemed like a touristy thing to do. No one really swims in the lake... Well we did. Corey convinced me it was an experience you had to do. So we started out with a hike which was BEAUTIFUL! I totally recommend it for all you hikers. Apparently May is the time to go though. After that we drove over to the salty beaches. Swimming in the Great Salt Lake is something I'll always remember. You literally just float! Another highlight of the trip was the wildlife. We pretty much drove right up next to some buffalo, antelope, deer, etc. It's pretty much an Utah Safari. haha. The only complaint is the bugs.... I have never seen so many bugs in my life. The best way I could describe it is this way, all you could breathe in was bugs. But besides that, it was a great trip. The Salt Lake is so pretty and the sunset was breathtaking. Below are some pictures of the trip.

H.A.G.S!!!

High kicks, high kicks. This is how we do it!

So I showed Corey this video knowing he would love it.

Needless to say, she is our new favorite youtube star. We pretty much spent the entire night watching her videos and learning about this Leslie Hall.

I thought I would share the love.

Enjoy!

We looked to see if she sold merchandise too.

She does.

The only problem is to decide which shirt I want!!!

I like

Thai Food and visiting good friends.

I can't resist watching a good sunset.

Snow Cones are so so delicious, especially mixed with ice cream.

I wish I was at the beach everyday...

Especially when it's sunny and with great people.

For just $1.07, you get a full fun fanciful day of kite flying. I like that.

I get lost in beautiful blue skies.

I find myself always craving sushi...

And now I can make it myself! Love that!

And I can always seem to find a dance party to boogey at.

Sometimes I wish that I could just freeze time...

Bally

Today, Utah State University is going to do a science project that will involve dropping 20,000 bouncy balls from a helicopter. At the same time, they will be breaking a world record.

I imagine it to be something like this video.

You can count on me being there.

I love USU.

For those of you who know me, know that I couldn't care less for Mr. Nicolas Cage. I'm not even sure how or why he is still making movies... I just can't wrap my head around it. But, kudos for Conan for this great clip. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one out there.

Yes, Sensei?

I have a lot of great/interesting teachers. But the best teacher award for this semester, albeit a close race, goes to Nick Guo. He teaches my Microeconomics class. We gave him the loving title of Master Goo because of the first day of class, he said that he got a Masters in Economics so we should call him Master instead of teacher. Followed right after by a , "Of course, I kid." This is a term you'll hear him say alot in classes. Now if you are in his class and you're not paying attention, there is no way you can know what he is talking about because most of the time you have to try and translate what he is saying. Pretty much straight outta China, he's still getting used to the English language. The first few classes I was confused because I thought I had to get some sort of Tax Book for the class. Three classes later, I come to find out that he was saying Textbook. I wasn't the only one confused either. Here are some other funny phrases needing a little bit of translation:

• "If you are late to class, I will have to punch you." = "If you are late to class, I will have to punish you."
• On the board he wrote "SUBUSTUE", which I found out later on he meant SUBSTITUTE.
• "Peas and root bear are also example of compliments." = "Pizza and rootbeer are also example of compliments."
• "Seltzer and chips would work too." = "Salsa and chips would work too."

Obviously, there is a bit of a language barrier. It's funny because my friends and I are usually asked to translate. Master Goo sees us as friends and I feel honored.

The other day, Master Goo was really excited because he had a video clip to show us for class. When it was time, this is what he showed us...

Needless to say, I am never bored in Master Goo's class.

Mmm Dang!

Everyone, meet Claire Harlos.

I met her last year by chance, and it's been history ever since!

She's my wingman,

my partner in crime,

and my good friend.

We decided to be roommates together last semester and it was the best decision we ever made.

But, sadly, China is taking her away.

She's leaving this Wednesday for 4 months and I miss her so much already!

I'm hoping these next 4 months go by fast so that we can party it up like always!

Good luck in China Claire!!!! I hope it's amazing and that you don't bring home a chinese husband like everyone says you will....

I'll party it up in the mean time in your honor!!

claire n' me on another adventure. POLAR BEAR FLOAT!

we can tear up the dance floor. even though here it looks like we are birthing babies...

the note says, "come back to bed, i miss you!"

shirt says, "claire gets my press rolling."

I'll miss leaving these tender messages...

aw shucks... i miss me some claire!

peace out baby cakes! *wink*