Home Sweet Home!

Jess, this one's for you! Mom knows you love to be included in everything fun that's going on. So we just wanted to say we miss you and wish you and Scott and Ethan and Grace were here. BUT, since you aren't, here's a little bit of what you've missed. We'll be sure and keep you posted! Love you!


Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Jacob made up that song all by himself. You'll have to ask him to tell you the lyrics to it...it's pretty funny. Sorry it got cut off a little bit there, I guess you're only allowed 2 minutes. The end of his song goes, "everyone says I smell nice. Because I wear my old spice." I thought it was pretty clever. Hope you liked it!

Back in the Big Easy!

So Laura and I got back to New Orleans Wednesday and we've been having a blast already. Emily and Jeremy get in tomorrow so we're all excited to see them! On Friday Laura and I went up to Baton Rouge with Meagan Appling. Well actually, our first stop was to her parents restaurant and they fed us..yumm! THen we headed to Baton Rouge. Meagan had to run some errands on campus so we got to pretend like we went to LSU for moment. I was wearing Freddie's Ole Miss sweatshirt, so we're pretty lucky we didn't get beat up.

It was kind of funny because in the bathrooms we saw all these different flyers about rape and herpes, and just random things you'd never see at BYU, so naturally had to take a picture...
After Meagan was done with her errands we went to the Mall of Louisiana, which was a zoo! I don't ever want to go to the mall again the weekend before Christmas...talk about claustrophobia. After the mall we went back to Meagan's apartment to hang out and wait for everyone else. Then we headed over to the cutest little restaurant, Boutin's.

We had grilled alligator for an appetizer, it was actually pretty delicious!

This makes me feel so old, Laura and all her friends are like 4 years younger than me and Meagan...

Christina, me, Helen, Meagan, Laura, and Sarah V.

Meagan got the same shirt as me....this is kind of like our christmas card picture!

Here's a little video of some cajun dancing and food from Boutin's....

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos
After Boutin's we went to downtown Baton Rouge and just walked around. Here is a shot from the roof of this cool building. You can see the Mississippi River behind us.

It's Birthday time!

So last Thursday (November 30) was Amy's birthday so we all went out to Happy Sumo, a cute little Japanese restaurant. Here is a picture of us after eating all of our sushi.

Here's some shots of us all goofing around outside of Happy Sumo because the lights and snow were so pretty...

We also tried to take some cute apartment pictures by our Christmas tree...we took several and I still don't think we got a good one.

My birthday was a week after Amy's. So once again we decided we'd go out to dinner to celebrate. I chose Macoroni Grill because it is one of my favorites! I got the Carmela's Chicken Rigatoni...yummy! Then one of the waiters came out and sang happy birthday to me in Italian. It was kind of hilarious, I had to try really hard not to laugh.

After dinner we headed back to our apartment and had some peeps over for cake. Amy made a delicious four layer chocolate cake, also known as "Perfect Chocolate Cake"...mmmm!

These boys are in our Sunday dinner group. I told them I wanted a new car for my birthday so they got me a cute little blue minivan (just like our road trip rental car)..."Maria Minivan" from Chevron.

Jessica got me a cane because two days before my birthday I sprained my ankle at kickboxing...

I had an awesome birthday and I'm excited to see what my 23rd year has in store for me!

Go Cougars!

So in my ward we have quite a few sports fanatics. They even go to some of the away BYU football games. We have a few of them in our dinner group so we've gotten to be pretty good friends. For BYU's most recent away game, vs. CSU, they made an announcement at ward prayer that anyone was invited to come along. Jessica and I were feeling adventurous so we decided we'd go along. Well they had been thinking about renting a big van, but since I had rental reimbursement because of my wrecked car, I suggested that I upgrade to a van and everyone could just pay the difference. So we got ourselves a blue minivan and headed off to the game in Fort Collins, Colorado. Luckily a girl in our ward is from Boulder and offered for us all to stay at her house.

So we headed to Colorado Friday afternoon, got there around 10:00 pm. The girl in our ward lives in this gate community with huge homes! When we got to her house her mom had made dozens and dozens of different kinds of cookies and had ice cream for us. The next morning for breakfast there was again a smorgasbord of food. There was cider, orange juice (probably fresh squeezed), and milk to drink. There was a huge fruit tray and dip. It wasn't your typical fruit tray of canteloupe, honeydew, and grapes -- It had blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and pineapple as well! Then there were bagels, muffins, and danishes galore and her mom had made this big omelet type of thing that was so delicious, it even had avocados in it. I should have taken some pictures of all the food and their house. It was like a vacation!

After breakfast we headed into town and went to an outdoor mall to kill some time. I took this picture of a lady doing yoga on top of a van.

Then we grabbed some pizzas and headed over to the CSU stadium to make some posters and tailgate.

The boys had me do the posters for them...

Sonny is the name of Colorado's coach...

Our cable provider, Dish, doesn't broadcast BCS football games...

So two of the girls we went with, Chelsea and Whitney, saw these guys and asked them if we could take a picture with them. It's kind of funny because it sort of looks like they are wearing blue shade shirts...

Here we are before the game...

Kickoff...

We beat CSU 24-3. BYU is actually doing really well this year -- they are ranked for the first time in a little while! After the game we headed back to good old Provo!

Crash!

Ok so I must have broken a mirror at some point in the last seven years because I've been having some bad luck...

I wrecked my car almost 3 weeks ago. One Friday afternoon I was sitting at home and watching TV when I saw this commercial for a new hair conditioner by Pantene Pro-V and, as some of you know, I am a succor for advertisements -- so off to Rite Aid I went. I went to Rite Aid and I got my stupid conditioner, then I decided to go next door to Big Lots to look for Grace a birthday present. On a lighter note, I found her this cute little Cinderella purse and girly accessories for like 5 bucks. So then I was all done and I got in my car and went to leave. (If only I would have stayed inside for like 2 more minutes!)

So I went to pull out of the parking lot and I needed to cross 3 lanes of traffic and get into the suicide lane so that I could turn left. Well I'm very familiar with this area and that is a tricky spot to get across, so I'm always super careful here. Anyway, by this time it was rush hour and traffic was backing up, especially in the farthest lane closest to where I was pulling out. Well this car left space for me to go, so I creeped into that lane so I could see if the rest of the way was clear and then I looked left then I looked right then I went to go and out of nowhere comes this dumb little silver suzuki and hits the front left side of my car and TOTALLY crunches the front of my car. It's wierd how it hit it in one spot, but yet it got crunched all the way around.

So the driver of the car gets out and he is this little Hispanic guy that doesn't speak much English. I'm like "oh my goodness I'm so sorry about this... I've never been in a wreck before, I'm not sure what to do...should I call the police?" and he was like in broken English) "uhh uhh, I have make call to brother." So i was like oh great, hes probably trying to call his brother to get some phony bologna insurance information. So I called the police (it was kind of exciting to be able to call 911) and then they came and we moved our cars out of the road. But meanwhile when we were waiting for the police, like everybody I know was driving by and honking, it was so embarassing.

Then we had to fill out a police report thing and the policeman gave me a ticket for "failure to yield"!!! I was like what the world, are you kidding me? He said that anytime you go from a private property (the rite aid parking lot) to a publc property (the road) and there is a collision, by definition it is considered failure to yield. ugh!! So i was like, well isnt the speed limit here like 30? And he was like umm im not sure, I think so. And I was like well by the damage to my car and the fact that I looked both ways then they came out of nowhere, wouldnt you think they were going faster than 30 mph, shouldn't they get a speeeding ticket. And he was like well its hard to make that conclusion, so they wont be issued a citation. ugh!

Anyway, my car wasn't really drivable, but luckily I was like 4 blocks from home and the officer said I would be able to make it, so i just drove really carefully but it was like stalling every time I tried to accelerate. But luckily I made it home ok and a tow-truck just came to pick it up the following Monday to take it into the shop.


Here it is just sitting on my street waiting for the tow truck...

It turns out the damage to my car was like $6500 so my insurance decided to total it. But my adjuster person is only in the office until 2:30 my time most days so I still haven't been able to find out how much they will give me for the value of my car. I think I will just go the rest of the semester without a car. (I have rental reimbursement for about one more week, so that has been nice!)

The good news is that everyone is ok, so I guess I am lucky in that regard.

Drive Safely!

The Greatest Show on Earth...

So last month the circus was in town the same weekend as General Conference. We decided while we were up in Salt Lake we should go to the circus on Saturday evening after conference. It turned out to be a lot of fun. If you get there early you get to participate in the pre-show activities down on the floor. I think pictures speak louder than words, so I'll just post a bunch of pictures and a few video clips.

This first video clip is of a cute little poodle riding a bike!

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

This video is of "Hercules"...he caught a cannonball!

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

This last video is of a bunch of little Asian guys swinging off of a swing and landing on the trapeze. They flew up to the trapeze one by one and stacked like 6 of them...check it out

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Here we are trying on some circus costumes

(Jessica, Amy, Laura, Me)

This is Me and Jessica trying out the circus guy's motorcycle.

Cutest Elephant Ever!

Here we are with a mix between a donkey and a zebra

...it was pretty funky looking.

General Conference

We were lucky to have tickets to go to General Conference. Not just one session, but two! We went up to the Conference Center for Saturday afternoon session and Sunday afternoon session. I absolutely love conference! It always reminds me of a scripture in Mosiah. King Benjamin had just addressed his people and it says that after hearing his message they experienced a change of heart and had no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually! That is always how I feel after conference...like I just want to do good from then on! I know President Hinckley is a prophet of God and I am so grateful that we have the truthfulness of the Gospel on the earth today!

This is outside of the Conference Center on Saturday afternoon

Inside the conference center

Sunday afternoon (with Eliza's boyfriend Joseph and our friend Jake)

80's Night

Every weekend a different band plays at Rock n' Bowl. For those of you who aren't familiar with Rock n' Bowl, it is probably the coolest bowling alley out there. We used to go there a lot when I was younger for Family Home Evening. Anyway, last Saturday it was 80's night. So a group of us went, and as you can see, some of us dressed up!

The band that played was The Molly Ringwalds. They are a local band that plays 80's songs. It was actually a lot of fun even though I don't really know that many 80's songs! Here's a picture of Napo rockin out with Dickie, one of our favorite band members, who is usually dressed up as Pee-Wee Herman.

Brenna, Meagan, and Me

We had a really fun time! The band was a little off the wall and we were probably the only sober ones there, so that always makes for an entertaining night!

Here's Napo, Brenna, Meagan and Conor...........and Laura

Blue Bayou

After the night of the dance we spent the night up in Baton Rouge and went to Blue Bayou the next day. We all got season passes because it is the same price as going twice. So now we can go whenever we want. Conor brought one of those disposable waterproof cameras and got some good shots. This is a picture of Brenna, Luis, Meagan, Paul, me, and Laura waiting in line for "the toilet bowl".


This is a picture of the toilet bowl. It was AWESOME!

Another one of my FAVORITE things about Blue Bayou is sipping lemonade on the "Atchafalaya River".

This is Alicia, Conor, and Meagan on lazy river without lemonade.

At Blue Bayou there is also an amusement park called Dixie Landin’. So at one point we took a break from the water slides and went on some rides. I have to tell you about “The Hot Shot”: it’s the scariest ride I’ve ever been on! I’m still not really sure why I went on it in the first place. I think it is about 15-20 stories high, and you get shot up to random heights at random times. Well first it shoots you all the way up…you can see from my facial expression how exciting it is. Just thinking about it again makes me cringe. It took me a while to catch my breath when I got off the ride, and I was shaking for like five minutes afterwards. Needless to say, I won’t be riding that one again. I think it was one of those things you just have to try once.