Make it count.

Let's see...this break has been quite uneventful. Not. Almost got fired on Thursday. Then again on Friday. And almost quit all those days and then some. But luckily, I'm a lucky girl and I think I may have it all figured out. So no worries, I'll be serving pie until the end of time.
So I've been home even more this break, and it's been wonderful. Christmas night, we [my mom, dad, Brittany, Melanie, Dan, Sheron, Branden, Carrie, Clint, Owen, and Maddy] went to a late showing of Les Miserables. And I cried like a baby. Seriously folks, if you haven't seen it yet? DO IT. It's incredible. Well worth the time and money. So ignore the quality of the picture and believe me when I say the excitement could not be contained--neither could the tears.

Then I went to Morgan's house on Wednesday night, and for the first time in a long time, it felt like it used to. We played Murderer in the Dark like we were in junior high again, and then took thirty minutes to get home because the roads were so bad. Thursday I went up to work again, and then last night?
I got to be with my best friend again. Emily and I are a disaster without each other, and a mess when we're together. So we went ice skating with her brother Tim, Bronson, Jon, and Jackson for a YSA activity. We're both awful, in case you were wondering.

After far too many farewells in one day, I can safely tell you that the future of this church is in good hands. I'm so proud of my friends that are serving missions, and even though I'm going to miss them all like crazy, there's nowhere else I'd have them be. 

It's New Year's Eve tomorrow....and we're going to make 2012 go out with a bang. 

Keep on smiling.

I love being home. [Mainly because there's real food, free laundry, and my family.] Also because I get sushi dinners. For Emily's birthday, she wanted to have sushi for dinner and ride FrontRunner into Salt Lake, so that's exactly what we did. Six sushi rolls, a mango salad, and japanese ice cream balls later, we rode frontrunner to City Creek and then looked at the lights at Temple Square. 

[This was BEFORE Aubrey needed new pants, and my mom had to run with her across the parking lot and into Gordman's to accomodate.]

With a building this pretty, it really makes you wonder why people would want to get married anywhere else. Seriously. And even with what seemed like a million and a half people swarming Temple Square, the lights were incredible as usual, and the temple looked spectacular. 

We watched a...happy couple for a good five minutes, and then tried to take a picture of them. You can barely see them in the background, but the best part of the picture has got to be Emi's face. Pure luck that we caught that on camera, folks. 

After being in Logan by myself for two days, I came home right after work on Tuesday night. And decided to see the Hobbit with my family and the Jason and Bentley. [Maybe I'm just a hater, but I have never been more bored in a movie in my whole life. Seriously. And the fact it's only the first of three movies the same length...kind of makes me want to poke my eyes out. In other words, thought I might be a LOTR fan...not so much. The end.] The fact that the movie was in 3D meant a tool-time picture in the mirror was only to be expected. 

Seeing a three hour movie at 10:20 pm, does nothing good when you have to be up at six thirty the next morning. Yesterday was Bronson's birthday, so Bronson, Jon, Paige, Jackson, Jared, Kambria and I went snowboarding/skiing at Brighton all day long. After not being on a snowboard in two years, I spent a fair amount of time either flat on my butt or on my face. And I'm sore enough today to make sure I'm not doing that again for a litte while. But I got to spend all day with my best friends, and then we went to the Davis Viewmont hockey game too. [Which was probably the weirdest thing...sitting next to Bronson and Dylan when I'm used to watching them play. Good news though, we still lost. And Bronson predicted the score perfectly, right down to who would score how many goals.] Needless to say, yesterday was fantastic, and it was the perfect way to spend the last birthday for two years with my best friend. Happy Birthday, kid. :)

It's even better than we think.

Somedays, things just go exactly how you want them to. Go Radio, my favorite band on this entire planet, let their new album become available for streaming a week before it's release. I'm not ashamed to admit that I booked it home from class, ran into my apartment, yelled "IS ANYBODY HOME??" plugged my computer into the stereo when the answer was negative, and blasted every song on there at least 4 times. Then calmly put my headphones in and listened to it by myself while everyone did homework. And then I took a nap. College is exhausting. 

We joined an intramural volleyball team. And ladies and gents? We're fierce. Tropical shirts, glitter makeup, and funky hair. We're excellent. We got slaughtered, but it's definitely worth the laughs---and taunts--we get from the other teams. 

Here's our team in it's entirely. Nutella Banana Bread. Brought to you by Pope Benedict XVI, Charles Schwab, and Tia and Tamara Mowry. 

In celebration of our loss, the snitches of 102 went to IHop. We were the only people in the restaurant, and we all ordered the same thing. Poor waitress.

 After running a marathon from Old Farm, to Pineview, and back to Old Farm, we finally found Mitch and Josh and Matt and Jim and watched Taken. Which was not a good idea, at 12 in the morning. So we got home, and discovered we were absolutely delirious. While we were washing our football makeup off, I walked out to this. Night world. We're tired. 

Every last disguise.

Three hours worth of Connections is a much better idea than six hours. Final convocation? Surprisingly interesting. And we're done! To celebrate, we went shopping. 

[Side story: This morning while I was walking to class, I got a text from my dad that said, "When you crawl out of bed miss 2 am blogger you'll find I put some money in your checking account. Go and buy yourself a first day of school outfit. Love m & d." Basically, it made my whole day better, and it gave me something to look forward to all day long. My parents are cooler than yours, I promise. And I love mine, a whole lot.] Emi, Kenzie and I went to the D.I. to try and find rugs for our apartment, but then we realized that would be gross. So we moved to Ross. And came home with three bags worth of clothes, but nothing for the dorm. Oh well. 

Dallin and his roommates had us come check out their "sweet" decor, and their brilliant stadium seating. Emi despises the word snuggle, so we dubbed the upper level of the couch the "snuggling couch." She and Dallin then pretended to re-enact a snuggle sesh. [I'm done saying that word forever now. It's seriously nasty. And no, there was no real snuggling going on. We did however steal some Gatorades from Vince. He's great.]

We like Twitter, and think we're more funny than we actually are. But this tweet was priceless. Especially because it's true. Singles wards/Institute scare me. Too many people my age and not enough noise. Weird. 

Max spent a majority of the evening attempting to "figure out every aspect of his life" on our kitchen counter. He didn't move while we cooked our dinner, cleaned our fish bowl, or hooked up our T.V. He's not good for much else anyway. [Just kidding. He helps us move in and offers us the service of his roommates whenever we need it.]

For graduation, I [meaning my mom] got Emi a "Crustache."  Today for lunch, she finally had the chance to use it. Really, it's probably the coolest kitchen supply we have. 

These are our fish, Frank and Flo. At one point they were a really pretty gold, but now they're more of a sick pasty white hue. It's not very pleasant actually, but we cleaned their bowl and gave them fresh water and we hope they survive the first week of school. Cross your fingers. 

My roommates are cuter than yours. And sometimes, our outfits coordinate enough that we could take family pictures if needs be. [Lauren coordinated too, she was just buying her laptop at the time and missed our tool time shot.] Really though, I lucked out on roommates. These girls make me laugh, and they think I'm funny, which doesn't happen often. We're all so different, but we get along wonderfully. [Unless you bring up the boys from 402, and that's another story entirely.] We've survived a week, and I'm sure we'll make it the rest of the year, as long as we can all get our laundry done and remember that throwing quesadillas is never a good idea. 

The institute activity was at the Eccles Ice Arena tonight, and even though I didn't get to skate--200 something pairs of skates and upwards of 700 people doesn't end well for a vast majority of the 18+ LDS community in Logan. But hey, we got free pizza.--I did get super excited for the hockey games. Kenzie and Adrienne thought the rink was freezing, but I was just so excited to be by ice again I could barely handle it. 

After the Institute activity, we went to Wal-Mart to see if we could find the cable whose absence was making our lives slightly less exciting. We found said cable, hooked up our TV, and now have access to a bazillion channels and can watch Psych, Modern Family, and TLCCCCCCCC. [The excitement was very well expressed, believe me.] We attempted to watch Hunger Games with Mitch and Josh and their crew, but resorted to our place again.] After a movie, mini golf through our stools, and a week full of change, we all crashed--hard.

Good thing church is at 11 tomorrow instead of 9, right? 

Strange things are happening.

Logan is awesome. Tonight, we got to go on an adventure up and down Main Street and get lots of free food and coupons. Chick-Fil-A gave out free sandwiches, and Emi just had to have her picture taken with the cow. (The pictures are out of order, just be prepared.) And then we got to go watch Candace play volleyball. And screamed like little girls from the front row. 

During our Taste of Logan tour, we went into Needham Jewelers and got these fabulous t-shirts. We then wore them to the whole game, and only 1308.120834 people said, "You're both single, so you should date." Then, when they realized there were three of us, things got weird. So we went back to our apartment to make peach smoothies with our free peaches--which turned out to be nectarines in reality--and burned out a blender in the process. So they took pictures with J-Biebs because they're single, and he wants to make them shine brighter than the snow. 

We modeled our shirts for the jewelry company as fantastically as we could and decided that we could no longer be single. So Josh and I played awkward third wheels while Emi and Mitch declared their love for each other. 

Emi's mom warned her to stay away from RM's...and we're both armed with pepper spray, so when he pulled a move she struck. [Not really, this was just the photo of the day for Kelly.]

And last but not least, Shelby (my A-Team mentor for Connections) made us Aggie cookies for our last full day of Connections. So much free food today, and I loved every second of it. Tomorrow, we get to meet David Baron, the author of The Beast in the Garden. Then, Connections is over (THREE HOURS EARLY!) And we get a whole day to recuperate before real school starts on Monday. 

College is fun. And stadium seating in the family rooms of Old Farm? Definitely cool. 

They don't take me seriously.

I move in less than two weeks, people. 

[breathe. phew. okay.] I guess the moral of the story is that things are changing, and it's weirding me out. Because for someone who loves to be in charge, this whole not being in control thing is rough. But. I'll survive. Because in 13 days, I'll be up in Logan, living with some of the best people I know--in a dorm that may test all of our kindness, but still--and meeting so many new people my mind will probably explode. Yay, college. 

Emi and I are headed up tomorrow to job hunt....and any ideas would be fantastic. Do any of you know of anywhere awesome that would be hiring? Or know of a place where you could put in a good word for two girls who just want a job? That'd be cool. Let me know. 

In other news, I melted. My hair, I mean. (Although if I really had, like Elphaba in Wicked...man. I'd be cool.) And chopped a solid four inches off. Mature college hairstyles, FTW. I've also lived in a tent for the last four nights. The first three, because my little sisters wanted me to. Last night? Because I put my sheets in the wash and forgot to dry them, dangit. Welp. 

AND! Hailee, Emi and I discovered a beautiful app. It's probably old news, but Bump brought us far too much pleasure last night. And in a week that has been filled with far too little pleasure, this was a much needed reprieve--if sending each other the best pictures we had of Emi is pleasure, I guess. To each his her own? But really. This app is cool. You have to all have it in order for it to work, but then once you do...beauty. Each phone opens it, and selects the pictures or contacts you want to "bump" to the other person. Then you fist bump the other persons phone (or come up with more creative ways...which we've spent far too much time doing already.) and the pictures are simultaneously transferred to each phone, and automatically saved to your photo album. Simple pleasures, for some not so simple minds. 

And. Fantastic Mr. Fox? Excellent. We're mature. What of it.