Pictures from Mardi Gras!

I look really young in this picture. . .

Gotta love Anike . . .

Best fish face EVER!

In the Trevor's Jeep on the way to hot springs. . .

The five of us, Anike, Jessica, me, Amy (their RA and roommate), and my twin, Emily, before Mardi Gras.

Go Fridays. The end.

Don't you love those weekends when you have positively nothing planned and think it'll be a boring weekend, but then out of the blue your weekend will totally fill up with fun things that include lots of people?? Yeah... me too. :)

So this weekend a bunch of us decided to go to some hot springs in Idaho. The place was out in the middle of nowhere... which, instead of meaning boring, it means STARS!!! Tons of 'em!! The sky was seriously brilliant. But yeah. . . that was pretty much the culmination, for me at least. . . But it was fun bobbin' around in what felt like boiling, hot tub, and bathtub water. :)

On Saturday, I basically spent the WHOLE DAY doing statistics homework and chemistry lab writeups. . . (I don't fill you all in on that... I'll spare you.) But that night I went with my twin, Anike, and Jessica (Hessica) to USU's Mardi Gras party!! We kinda sorta dressed up and once we were in, we walked past performers (dancers, singers...), freeloaders, jesters, etc. The basement of the TSC had been turned into a street in New Orleans. We (meaning Emily and I) then waited in line forEVER for an airbrushed face paint job! After the wait, my twin got up there and got a red bubble-looking design above her eyes. Perdy cool! I sat down a little while later and I wait for the lady to ask me what I want done and she doesn't speak a word, just start testing the color. Finally she's about to spray me and I go, "Wait! I'm not sure I want green!!" She goes, "It's not green. It's yellow." "Well--" "Just sit still. You'll like it." (Ahhhh!) So she starts painting me yellow above my eye.... and then she blows the paint into my hair!!!! I'm thinking, "Ahh! Lady! I do NOT want paint in my hair no matter HOW cool you think it looks! I washed it like an hour ago!!" After this scary ordeal, she stops, grabs a mirror and says, "... got a little bit of animal magnetism coming out..." hahaha.

So actually it did turn out pretty neato frito burrito. :)

After our paint job, we went upstairs and danced. Unfortunately, there were people there that were dancing in the most obscene way!! Like I will not burden you by desribing it, just know it was nastolii. We went to check out a featured live band they had there. They were pretty good, I thought. Not the kind of music I usually listen to, but hey. We were right up front until we decided to head to our next destination: The Illusionist, Mike Super. Apparently he's #1 in the world, next to Chris Angel. There was a show on TV last year that Chris Angel and someone else hosted and this Mike Super won it. Kinda like the American Idol for magicians. :) So since he won it, he got a quarter of a million dollars and his own show that will air this summer or something. Cool beans! I then found out WHY he won!! . . .

The guy freaking levitated a Kleenex!! He folded it into a ball and made it climb all over his arm. Then he made it climb all over a volunteer's arm. The neat thing was, though, was that when it was climbing over hte girl's arm, he wasn't doing anything! He was just standing there next to her! Then he took the tissue, twisted it into a flower, made it stand up in his hand, made it spin (all without touching it), and just let go... and it STAYED IN THE AIR! There was nothing under it or on top of it... I have NO idea how he did it!!

He also did voodoo magic! Haha. So he brought out a doll and picked a random person from the audience. His choice happened to be a big black guy, Tyrone. He had Tyrone sit in a chair about six feet from him and his voodoo doll. Tyrone closed his eyes and clasped his hands our in front of him. Mike then took the doll and tapped its shoulder. He told Tyrone to open his eyes and tell us if he'd felt anything. He said he'd felt two taps on his shoulder. The crowd gasped!! (hahaha) So then Mike said, "Tyrone's still not convinced. Let's take it up a notch." He pulled out a lighter and the doll's hands went up in smoke. Mike then told Tyrone to open his hands and Lo and Behold he had black on his hands as if they'd been singed. Mike had a third trick up his sleeve, though. He told Tyrone to close his eyes one more time. He brought out a pin . . . yeah . . !! As he's driving the pin through the doll's backside, he tells Tyrone to just tells us when he feels something-- Tyrone JUMPS UP and reels around to look at what poked him! Hahaha it was so weird! I wonder what really poked him. It was funny because the entire show, Mike was telling us nothing was real, how it was all an illusion. Interesting...

He did a bunch of tricks, obviously, but those were the two that impressed me most. :)

Good weekend!!!

Valentine's Day! <3

Saturday morning was spent sleeping, getting ready, running valentines to my visiting teaching companion and girls, cleaning, asking Trev when he called about how he did in his ski race that morning (in which he placed first), opening my valentine from my parents (which I loved!), talking to Lisa, my roommate, checking the mail unsuccessfully, taking a shower, and receiving a valentine Symphony bar from my FHE husband, "Hubby"!! Yummmm. It was really nice of him. And Richard said he has one for me too. I love these guys, they're so nice to me and I love their friendship. Good guys. Good examples.

Anyway! After Trevor got back down the canyon from his race and the raffle at which he won new ski poles and a shirt (yay), he came over to get me for our date. After talking to my sister about the awfulness of restaurants in Logan on Valentine's Day, I kind of hoped we'd go to his house and cook dinner on our own, but wasn't sure about the plan because he hadn't given anything away.

As it turned out, we did!! When we first arrived at his house, he hugged me in the living room and as I looked around I found the frame and pictures I'd given him... ON THE MANTLE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LIVING ROOM with no other pictures around it! I quickly pulled away, astonished, and said, "I thought that was going in your room! We're in the middle of the living room where everyone notices?" He answers, "Umm... they like you?" Haha. I felt honored, LOL.

Anyway, we made dinner--a very good pasta he's been wanting me to try for a while (with the strangest ingredients!) and which I'll have to make again--and when it was about done, I asked, "So... ya wanna set the table now?" He gave me funny answers until I finally figured out we weren't eating in the usual spot. We got it into bowls and everything and then he led me through some halls and down into his mother's flower room, where she makes her flower arrangements, with lots of windows. In the room, there was a little table with candles and a flower and the tinest salt and pepper shakers haha, and pretty plates and crystal glasses. As he walked out to get something he called back, "The card's for you. . ." I read it and he heard me laughing from the kitchen haha. The card fit him SO well and it made it funnier because I had talked about its contents with Meagan and Richard the day before! It said, "Honey, on Valentine's Day I want to show you what a hopeless romantic I am. . . " (open card) ". . . but since you already know I'm hopeless, I'll focus on the romantic part. XOXO" hahaha! So funny.

He came back with a box, which, when I opened, contained a dark brown bear, a cd I'd been bothering him about borrowing because I love it, and a book called Time Is A River. I figured out why he adamantly refused to let me borrow his Quietdrive cd then! I also figured out why his mom had interrogated me about that kind of books I like to read the night before haha. (She ended up lending me two of her books. Rach, I know, you'll be familiar with one of them, which I'm reading now, The Secret Life of Bees and another one, Love In the Driest Season.

Then he asked me, "So have you figured out the other part of your present?" I hestitated and hoped for the best, "Umm... the orchid on the table?" "Yep." I SO wanted it to be for me when I realized it was a orchid on the table, but wasn't sure because it very well may have been his mother's because she's very flower-oriented. :) But it was for me! And now it sits on a little table in my room. :) It's pink!

After that, we ate our dinner and talked and laughed. We cleaned up afterward and even though he hates it, I did the dishes and cleaned off the table, haha. (I'm starting to get to know his kitchen better than he does haha. Seriously, though.) After wel cleaned up, we sat in front of the fireplace because I'm always cold and so I basically reside in front of that thing when I'm there, haha. We decided to watch Moulin Rouge, but he doesn't have it so we were going to go get it. I get sick of driving, or sitting in the passenger seat, rather, so I was going to make him go by himself, hahahaha, so he'd hurry to come back, right? (I'm eeeeeeeevil!) But he didn't want to go alone so he devised this sneaky little plan to have me come along. . . he knows I have a weakness: boys handing me keys to cars. So he handed me the keys, saying, "I've never seen you drive." Fun! So I went, haha. I drove the Jeep and it's lucky I did because it was slick! Naturally, the time he lets me drive it's slipperier than ... yeah ... and I won't tell you how it went, but it was interesting haha. I didn't hit anything, don't worry, lol.

We got the movie and even though his parents invited us to watch a movie with them, we declined because I don't like scary movies and his mother can't stand mushy movies--in case anyone was wondering why they'd watch a scary movie on Valentine's Day. :) We went back to my apartment and watched it on my laptop and then he went home after inviting me to go to his church the next day. I said I'd let him know later. I talked to my roommate Lisa about it that night and she said she'd go with me so we went on Sunday to his and Ryan's student ward. This was beneficial because my twin, Emily, and I need to scope out wards for next year when we live off campus. I really liked this ward so we might be attending there next year. Lots of women Rms!

Well! That was the weekend. . . Hope all of your weekends went well!

Pre-Valentine Scavenger Hunt!

Hey y'all! (See? I'm gearin' up fer Texas in March!)

So I hope all of your Valentine's Days went well! I know mine did!

My dear sister helped give me ideas for what to do for Trevor and I'm glad to say it was a success!

We decided that Friday would me my day for him and Saturday would be his day for me. So on Friday, my really good friend Richard and I set up a scavenger hunt for Trevor around campus to places we've "made memories" you could say. It was so much fun! Richard and I felt so sneaky, haha! So here's where the hunt sent him:

1. I called him after work and told him to meet me in the engineering building (the farthest building from the first destination haha). Instead of giving him the envelope myself, I had Richard give him the first clue while I peeked out from behind a study area wall haha. After Trev received the envelope and telling Rich where he'd parked, he set off. When he left, Rich and I went to Trevor's car to heart attack it, Trevor having given me the key that morning (which I found felt very good... ;) I liked having him hand me keys.... haha).

2. The first destination of the scavenger hunt was the Hub. For all of ye who aren't familiar with USU's campus, it's an eating area in the TSC, one of the main buildings on campus. On each of the clues, I write down a thought for each letter of L-O-V-E. At the Hub he found the next clue under a table saying, "L is for laughter, because that and your smile were the first things I noticed about you and we laugh easily with each other..."

3. That clue told him, through intimation, to go to the Field House, or the campus gym, basically, that has pool tables and where he's taught me to play pool and we've played with friends. He had to call me about that clue--he couldn't find it, or rather he looked in the right place but it blended in the first time. :) (It was behind the door.) It said, "O is for overlooks and open sky because it was overlooking the valley that I got to know you better and it was under and open sky that we first ... [started to like each other, I guess you could say.]" This clue intimated that the next venue was my apartment, and I included my key.

4. The clue told him to turn on my MP3 player when he arrived and I had preset it to play "L-O-V-E" by Nat King Cole. :) He was surprisingly thorough--as in he looked places that I thought of hiding it but decided against becase I thought he'd get stuck. I also thought of hinting through something in the song and he ended up looking all over the mirrors because it says, "L is for the way you LOOK at me, O is for the only one I SEE..." He turned out to be a lot more intuitive than I'd expected. Good news. :) So now I want to do another scavenger hunt and make it harder and more intuitive because I know he can do it. :)

Anyway, the clue was on the backside of my closet door and said, "V is for very warm..." We lend each other sweatshirts and I thought it tied into the fact that I was giving him a blanket...

5. That clue led him to the institute building, where we have Old Testament together. This is where he spent the most time haha. I hid the next clue under a table in the main lounge, and in fact he looked under the right table twice but missed it because of the lip. But he really covered his bases! He went into the ping pong room, all the lounges, even the teachers' lounge, looked under EVERY table---he said his legs hurt from it and he's a skier who doesn't get sore legs easily! Two of these clues had scrambled passwords on them that he had to decipher in order to get his gifts at the end of the line. This one was obviously "Old Testament". And oh yeah, it said, "E is for eyes..." If you've met or seen him, he has the brightest blue eyes, or at least contend-worthy bright blue haha.

6. That clue oriented him toward his car, which he was supposed to think was the last destination. Here he found the inside of his car covered in hearts, with chocolate truffles, a silhouette of a boy and girl holding hands on his sunroof, and heart-shaped pillows (that usually reside on my bed haha) and another clue. This clue said, "U is for U R NOT DONE YET!!..." It explained that it may have been in a car (up the canyon) that we first hung out outside of studying for calculus and first really got to know each other (and yes, flirt) but it was not the venue of the very beginning and told him to go where we met for the very first time ever and where we spent a vast amount of time last semester working on calc--the library.

7. At the library, on the fourth floor balcony where we first met, I waited for him with his gifts (and my laptop to keep me busy). Richard had been there talking with me the whole time but left right as Trev was walking in the front doors, four floors down. They must've passed in the elevators...

Here, he gave me the passwords and I gave him his fleece blanket that I had tied and a picture frame with two pictures of us in it. :)

That was Friday's activity. . . mine for him. . . so stay tuned for the actual Valentine's Day blog entry. :)

The Update

Alrighty, so I realize I've been positively TERRIBLE at updating my blog, but bear with me. Just be satisfied that I've been LIVING the life instead of just trying to record it. And it's been quite fun, I might add!

So to give you an idea of what I've been up to for the past little while, I shall create a list...

-I hung out with Brantley two weeks ago for the last time before he leaves on his mission to Minneapolis. It was a BLAST! We talked about everything, as we always found easy to do, and took fun pictures! Then he called me last night to talk one last time. He leaves on Wednesday, Feb 11th.

-My roommates and I pulled all our beds into the living room (five beds in our tiny living room!) and had a sleepover! We all laid in a circle with our heads in the middle and Lisa and I slept under her warm blanket... mmm...

I had the earliest class the next morning and it was tough climbing over everybody... And then to top it off, our new couch came that day and when the mover guys looked inside they were quite astonished. :)

-I've gone skiing twice now this season!! And I'm pleased to say that I have very good teachers who know skiing and skiing technique backwards and forwards.

-I'm taking ballet again and LOVING it! The muscles are starting to creep back, but aren't quite all here again yet. Obviously. :)

-My twin, Emily Blotter, and I have walked through the house we'll be living in next year and I love it! We'll actually have ROOM! Living in a little apartment gets. . . crampifying! --especially when you went from three people living in 4000 sq ft to 5-6 people living in 900 sq ft! We went to the basketball game on Thursday against New Mexico and the Aggies won! Of course... :)

-Trevor's cute as ever! My roommate, Caitlyn, and her former beloved gave us the idea of having a three-month anniversary and we celebrated it (after we realized ours was THAT DAY) by going to the first place we realized we both liked each other, when we were together for the first time outside of studying for calculus II--up Logan Canyon. . . Too bad I got sick! Dinner did not sit well with me and so we came back early and he held my sick little self while I fell asleep. :) (Haha, he's wearing the same shirt in two instances! ... good shirt ... )

-I love my institute class. The Old Testament was always something I wanted to know more about and then after seminary my senior year, after waiting four years to have it, it became a favorite. I'm in OT 1 Kings - Malachi this semester and it's sooo good.

-Chemistry is a beast! The labs are getting crazy. (I realize that if any of you has taken Organic Chem they are laughing at me right now because O Chem is WAY WORSE than Inorganic Chem.... but still... I have not gotten there yet...) We had our first test last week and I actually did pretty well, ranking 18th out of 163. So not brag-worthy, but not bad.

-I also had my first Stats test and did reasonably well on that too. And hopefully the scores will just go up from here!

-Statistics is . . . . NOT CALCULUS! Which is very good some days. . . and kind of sad others . . .

-Interior Design keeps my right brain on its toes. . . (that's a weird thought...) like it hasn't had for QUITE some time. My creativity is being revisited and it's hard for Emily and I, the biochem majors!

-Philosophy is . . . interesting . . . and SO POINTLESS sometimes!!! I'm just glad we're past Socrates, sheesh. I like Aristotle MUCH better. After all, my favorite quote comes from him: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit."

-Sleep 101 is . . . a wonderful class that all should take. . . just hard to find time for. ;)

-My roommates and I went to a stake dance last night that took the place of FHE and, as all stake dances, it started out a little slow, but after a while it picked up and we ended up staying for over two hours! Usually I don't like slow dances, but I liked 'em this time because I just turned them into Interpretive Dance Time, which Marhsall and I and Derrick made very interpretive. :)

-I went home to Sandy the last week in January, spent time with my parents (just didn't tell people I was home heehee), and went to the Draper temple open house with two friends, my mom, and a friend's mom, which was amazing. Naturally. I loved being with my parents over the weekend but it was entirely too short!!

-I finally saw Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda!

-I'm excited for Valentine's Day this weekend! I'm glad it's on Saturday, too. My sis, aka the bank of V-Day ideas, and my twin helped me out with what to do for Trev. :)

-Although Spring Break is a month away, everyone's thinking about it and I'm very excited for my trip to Austin!

Hope everyone's month is going wonderfully!

Hi y'all. Just letting you know I did not die. I just have a severe case of blog-slacker-syndrome. :) Sorry! I'll update soon.

DONE!!

I MADE IT!

I SURVIVED THE HARDEST CLASS IN MY ACADEMIC LIFE THUS FAR!!!

I took my Calculus II final this morning and... didn't DIE!! And what's more, I think I just might pull a decent score on my final and therefore hopefully a decent score for the overall class. *crosses fingers*

I've spent by far the most time on this class (in class and outside of class) than any other so ... :)

Thank you, Ryan and Trevor and Levi!!